By: Vicken Semerdijan
Vicken: What are some differences between ESHS and previous schools that you've taught, whether it be the students, administration, or curriculum?
Ms. Strawn: Well Vicken, that's a very complicated question, because not only have I taught at four different schools, but I've also taught at four different levels. So I started my career working at Washington State University, where I worked for five years, and before that, two years at the University of Idaho, where I was teaching incoming freshmen that just graduated high school. They came into school, and they know a lot when they’re freshmen; so, I had to push through the “I know more than you do”, which was interesting. What I have noticed working at El Segundo, is that students are quick-paced, they work through things very quickly, and I have to prepare a lot, that is not only complex and engaging but there’s also a lot of it.
Vicken: Have you had to adapt your teaching style to follow the ESHS graduate profile? How so?
Strawn: That’s a great question; and no I have not, [when I was interviewing] I had seen the graduate profile, and all of the things that were on the graduate profile were things I was already doing, and so I appreciate that a place that I was hired by, I was in line with already. So it has not dramatically altered what I teach, how I teach, or what I’m asking students to do. I particularly like the cultural competence piece, where we are becoming critical and independent thinkers; I try to avoid busy work like worksheets as much as possible unless necessary, and I think fits those two pockets.
Vicken: You’ve made it fairly apparent that “Harry Potter” is your favorite book series, why Harry Potter, and how did that come to be?
Strawn: Like many students and lovers of books, I found the book at the right time in my life, it was not something that was assigned to me, I just happened upon it, and [there were] a lot of other readers that were like "Really, Harry Potter, are you sure?"; so I didn't start reading it as a kid until they were on book three, and I just loved them; of course like all the other nerd fans out there, I would show up at Barnes & Noble or Walmart the night they were released, and stay up all night reading them. But the one that sticks with me is number 5, which I know is a lot of people's most hated book because it moves so slowly; but the message in #5 is wonderful, that we have lightness and darkness, and we have to choose which one to feed and to choose which one to cater to. I really love the message of that one, and I really love that the arc of the story follows the hero's journey, which we've seen in millennia of literature, but doesn't get any worse just because it's old.
Vicken: As an English teacher, I would think that literacy is a major part of your life. What book(s) have you read in the past few years that changed your perspective on something that you thought you knew?
Strawn: First(for context), I read a book a week, every year, I say I'm going to read 52 books (honestly I usually end up between 45-49, and that's okay); but there are two that have stuck to me in the past two years in the fiction world:
[1] Hamnet, A historical-fiction retelling of Shakespeare's son Hamnet, had twins, and it's about the loss of a child, and when I read that, I was struck by how none of us are really alone in traumatic experiences, so I thought that's great.
[2] The Desert of the Sea, is a non-fiction memoir of a man (Michael Scott Moore) who went to Somalia to cover what was happening, and he was kidnapped by pirates for 977 days(nearly 3 years), and what he keeps talking about over and over again, was how bored he was, there wasn't especially a lot of torture, it wasn't especially awful, but he felt so bored, and he felt so much loss, that he was wasting his time. And that sat with me for a long time because I thought, how often are we telling ourselves that we are bored, how often are we wasting our very finite time on this earth(if you think about it, the average human gets 4000 weeks in their life, and that's not enough to do all the things!) and so, I had to reevaluate how I'm spending my time, who I'm spending my time with, how many times do I get to have this experience? I'm in my late 30s, I have maybe another 30 Christmases, that doesn't seem like very much. I get maybe another 25 years of work, that doesn't seem like very much to me. So I would definitely recommend that to someone who is feeling like life is dragging on, about his experience being a captive on a Somali ship which, if you care to know, eventually(because the government wasn't doing anything) his mom put together $750000, and she bought him back from the pirates, and when he came home, he knew that he had to do things differently now.
Vicken: AP Literature or AP Lang & Comp? Why?
Strawn: I do have my master's in literature, but in the past ten years, I have developed a deep love for AP Lang, for a few reasons. One, I go to Tampa and I read the essays every year, and I love the experience. I love seeing what students can do at the end of three or four years of their education in writing, and it's fabulous. but what I love about Lang is that it's so useful, you use it all the time, we think about it in advertising, we think about rhetoric and language in composition and speeches, and when we see the news, you have to force yourself into thinking about rhetoric many times a day, and so I think that AP lang offers students and teachers(and everyone involved) the tools to be a little more successful in our interpretation of the world.
Vicken: Any closing remarks?
Strawn: Love working here, I have lovely students, lovely administration, and lovely colleagues. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Strawn! -Vicken