I grew up on small farm in Ravenna Township, Ohio. It was the ten acres remaining of a much larger farm and included the century-old farmhouse and a barn. Surrounding it all my life was the “new age” of developments. Literally along our exterior fence were the manicured lawns of suburbia. But our farm remained, and it was a great place to grow up.
Undergrad
I began my studies at Ohio University in Fall of 2018. I studied music education with a choral emphasis. My primary instrument was voice, and my favorite language to sing in was German. I consistently worked during school; in various roles including fast food, as a food server, event staff, parking staff, and resident assistant. I student taught at Meigs Middle School in Pomerory, Ohio.
Teaching
I began my teaching career at Walls Elementary School of Kent City School District in Kent, Ohio in Fall of 2022 and continue to teach there now. My students range from kindergarten to 5th grade. In addition to music instruction, I organize the daily collection of food waste from student lunches, diverting it from the landfill and back to our school garden and to Rubber City Reuse (Akron, Ohio).
Masters/Law School
After a year of teaching, I decided to pursue my masters in cultural foundations of education at Kent State University in the evenings. My thesis is entitled Education for Sustainability in Every Classroom of the School. Following this, I began part-time law school at the University of Akron in Fall of 2024. Additionally in Spring of 2025, I began working on coursework for my school administrator license.
My Passions
I’ve always loved music. I love listening to it and making it. When I was in high school, I released an EP of songs I’d written since middle school. You won’t find it anywhere these days except in a box in my closet and a folder on my computer, but I’m so grateful for those recordings. They capture the voice of my younger self. The project was produced by the great Jerry Keegan. I’ll be forever grateful to him. I still write today, and I hope to record more in the future.
Politics have been an increasing interest. It feels bizzare to call it a passion due to the popular stigma labeling politics as something distasteful, perhaps due to the failures, crimes, inequality, injustice, etc. that has plagued politics perhaps forever. However, I love the great things that have been done–the cooperation, compromise, treaties of peace, betterment of people’s lives. I believe that politics done correctly can achieve these things. I believe that America has and can always have the ability to do great things if people stay engaged. Part of creating this space is me trying to do that. I hope to fill my blog with commentary and essays on political issues and current events.
When I began teaching, I found a new passion for sustainability— development and education. This was due in large part to my graduate studies in the social foundations. I studied capitalism, society, and their relation to education. Climate change, pollution, and the destruction of nature for capital gain became recurring themes. Teachers at my school led intermittent collection of food waste for composting, and it was a goal of our school garden’s non-profit, Let’s Grow Together Coalition, to reduce food waste.
