Student Survey

I feel that an important part of my role as a teacher is to create a safe and welcoming learning environments for all the members in our classes. Part of creating that environment, is getting to know each of us as learners and to respect our individual differences and interests. Unfortunately, in High School, we see each other for only one period each day, and there is a lot of material to cover in the curriculum. This makes it hard to get to know each other as learners.

Survey Time!

I have created a short survey to try and get to know you better as individuals and as learners. There are questions about your general interests and questions about how you like to function in a classroom. You can choose not answer any particular question if you wish, except for providing your name. I will be sharing the combined results of this survey with your class on this blog. However, I will not disclose your individual answers.

As for myself, I feel that I should share some of my own interests in return. Well, I am a photographer in my spare time. I like to photograph landscapes, urban decay, and nature. Some of my work is on my website www.iancoxleigh.com (which I built back before I became a teacher).

I am also an Egyptologist by training. I have an MA in Egyptology and studied for several more years after that as well. As a result, I can read several phases of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. Want me to write your name phonetically using hieroglyphs? Just ask.

This reads (roughly):
“Follow Your Heart As Long as You Live”

I love classical music and opera. I am especially fond of modern American minimalist composers (Adams, Reich), late romantic composers (Dvorak, Mahler), as well as a few others (Pärt, Shostakovich). I also like lots of other more popular music too (you might just be surprised . . .).

Lastly,  I personally like calm, structured, learning environments and I enjoy good class discussions and enthusiatic and interesting lectures. However, I know that doesn’t work for every person so I will always be trying to provide a good mix of styles and activities so that everyone can have some days delivered in that way that they learn best and everyone (including me) can be challenged by new environments and styles every once and a while, as well. We grow by being pushed outside of our comfort zones, but with support so that we can succeed.