Little Salley Walker Lessons

10 years classroom teaching experience: French Broad River Academy: 8th Grade Humanities Founder and Teacher, 6th Grade Music Teacher, Head of Music, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator; Saint Andrew’s-Sewanee School: Middle and High School English and Science; Pingry School of Excellence and Honor: 9th and 10th grade English. 12 years outdoor trip leading with Moondance Adventures and French Broad River Academy

I create a student-centered, differentiated, joyful, curious culture in which the students learn the tools to close read literature and historical events to create their own argumentative answer to student-generated questions. I use Round Table Discussions and individualized historical research projects to encourage students to engage with the curriculum and make meaning out of endlessly interesting and complex material.

Order of Gownsmen, University academic honor society; Dean’s List, requiring a 3.625 per given semester, 2009-2013; B.S. Env Science: Magna Cum Laude with departmental Honors; B.A. English with departmental Honors: Honors Thesis: The Soluble Auden; Geologic Symbolism in Auden’s “In Praise of Limestone”; Wilderness First Responder certified, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020; Mountain Mover, Sewanee Community Service Award, 2009-2010

Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English: Masters of Arts; Sewanee: The University of the South: B.A. English, B.S. Environmental Science, Minor in Education; Randolph School K-12

After spending summers guiding high school students in the outdoors (teaching leadership and interpersonal skills), I began my classroom teaching career with amazingly supportive training at the Pingry School where I was a long-term substitute for 9th and 10th grade English. I then moved back to Sewanee to teach, coach, and live as a boarding parent at the Saint-Andrews Sewanee school. There I taught every grade between 6th-12th; I taught English, Field Geology, Earth Science, and Adventure Education. It was during my time at SAS that I fell in love with creating creative and rigorous curricula: I especially loved blending subject matter and creating an environment for students to be self-driven, overflowing with enthusiasm for what they were discovering about the world around them. Courses included "Reading the Land," an upper level, field-intensive geology course that explored the local environment through autobiography, poetry, and short essays; and "Literature and the American Environment," an upper level writing course that explored changing environmental philosophies in the American past. After my time at SAS, I began taking courses at Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English to get my Masters degree, and I moved to Asheville to be a founding member of the French Broad River Academy for Girls and help create the 8th grade Social Studies and Language Arts curriculum. Since working at FBRA, and pioneering the Humanities department and the Place-Based Learning curriculum, I have developed the 8th Grade Humanities: United States Literature and History curriculum shared on TpT. As the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion coordinator, I also worked to weave aspects of the DEI curriculum into my Humanities class. I've also taught 6th grade music and became the Head of the Music department.