I think a teacher’s role should be to support students to connect a subject to their lives, community, and the world around them. This means both supporting them to bring in and build from the variety of experiences they have had with a subject both within and beyond school settings, and supporting them to take their experiences and lessons learned within the classroom into their lives beyond school as well.”
Laney’s Story
Teaching Discipline
Mathematics
Why Mathematics
“In college, I really began to see what math was about beyond just numbers and calculations, which was something I struggled with for a large portion of my early math education. Math became collaborative, it became about reasoning, and often became creative. What was most exciting to me about math was seeing the ways I could apply the kinds of thinking I did in math to other contexts, like writing and science. Seeing how mathematical thinking could happen outside of math class really motivated me to think and work towards how to support students to feel this connectedness with the subject, a subject that too often is exclusive and presented as having one narrow way to do it.”
Professional Experience
Laney taught pre-calculus and geometry for two years at Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school. In addition, she worked as a residential dorm advisor and coached cross country and track and field.
Laney will begin teaching at Sequoia High School during the 2020–2021 school year.
Hobbies
Laney enjoys creative activities, from creating art to painting to animation.
Academic Background
- Stanford University (Master of Arts in Education)
- Williams College (Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics)