Curricular, staff changes keep Global spinning in slightly different direction

Global Academy underwent an extreme academic makeover as sophomores bid adieu to AP European History. Now, Global Academy prioritizes its original motives above the European Continent in an effort to give students a more synthesized learning experience and bridge gaps between English, Spanish, and Social Studies. 

Level two welcomed two new faces as well. Kelly VanSistine, the Academy’s former English 2 Honors teacher, took a new position as instructional support teacher at Carl Traeger Middle School. Former Academy Spanish 3 teacher, Justin Hable, can now be found in student services as he has taken on the Dean of Students position.

Returning to Wildcat Nation after successful and positive long term sub opportunities is Erin Quesnell Jobs. After spending three months subbing for level one Spanish while Marisa Karll was on maternity leave, Quesnell is now taking over as Spanish three teacher for level two.

Quesnell believes that subbing for Karll last year helped her build a connection with the students, which she found to be vital in transitioning into her new position. 

“I would be very lost if I didn’t sub last year for Karll,” she said. “Getting to know students and having familiar faces to come back to this year made this transition a lot easier for me.”

Quesnell is excited to teach the same class for the second year in a row. 

“This is almost unheard of, teachers don’t usually get an opportunity to teach the exact same class two years in a row,” she said.  

Having taught these students before, Quesnell already has built a connection with many of them. She finds that building a connection with students is crucial.

“My biggest focus is on connection first and content second,” she said. “You can’t teach somebody who doesn’t want to be taught; you can’t help someone understand something if they are not trusting of you. So the connection has to come first, content second.” 

Quesnell also took part in a program similar to Global when she was in high school.

“I loved being in the same class with the same students,” she said. “I felt like we actually did make tighter connections and when you have tighter connections with your peers you get to have better conversations, you get to grow more in terms of your learning and your world perspective.”

While all of the differences in Global Academy this year may be stressful to students, Quesnell believes that these are all positive changes that will yield benefits.

“I think we’re at a really good point,” she said. “This is a good chance to revamp, refresh, and rejuvenate the curriculum, and just recenter ourselves and who is level two, what are we doing in level two, what’s our identity, what is it we want to push students to explore and learn.”

Overall, Quesnell is very excited to take on the role as a Spanish teacher and this new  school year.

The English department is also welcoming a new face. Crystal Mueller will be the English 2 Honors teacher for level two of Global Academy. While she has experience from teaching at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, this will be her first year at West. 

Mueller’s inspiration for becoming a teacher was to give students an opportunity through their education. After knowing people who didn’t have the same opportunities with education, it is important to her to present students with more chances. 

“I feel like education provides a lot of opportunity,” she said. “Being able to provide people with an opportunity to be able to do things beyond what maybe their parents did makes me excited to teach.”

Curricular changes never end, according to Mueller.

“Wayne’s curriculum evolved from the time she came until she left,” she said. “It’s working always to be more contemporary, so addressing problems that we see now. It’s why it’s exciting to teach in Global, because we are working really hard to make sure it’s about awareness of the culture we live in.”

Similarly to Quesnell, Dr. Mueller also finds making connections to be an important part of not only her job, but life in general. She appreciates the close-knit nature of the Global community and thinks that it benefits not only students, but also the entirety of West. 

“I like the community that the Academy is able to develop,” Mueller said. “Having that close knit community benefits not just this community but all of West because developing as students in that way helps everyone learn better.”

While social studies still has a familiar face, it is facing some of the biggest changes in the Academy. Daniel Lewis has been teaching since 2019, and it all has been spent at West teaching social studies for Global. For the past five years Lewis has taught AP Euro, and he is excited to teach new classes such as human geography and diversity studies.

“The big reason for taking out AP Euro was it was a very set in stone curriculum, you had to do these units in this order, and that made it more difficult to do cross curriculum lessons and activities,” he said. “It was really tough to do a shared English and social studies lesson if social studies had to be doing this thing at this time and English was reading a book that did not match with that.”

While human geography and diversity studies are both very different courses from AP Euro, the Global teachers believe that this will be a positive change for the class. 

“With geography you can look at any different part of the world; it’s going to allow for a lot more connectivity and cross teaching with English and Spanish,” Lewis said. “That was a big reason I was excited to teach that and diversity studies is just the openness with teaching lessons that combine with the other classes.”

The added connectivity between the Global classes will hopefully be helpful to students in learning the material better. 

“I think that we’ll hopefully make it easier for students if they’re learning some of the information from two different perspectives in two different classes; it’ll kind of drive that information home a little deeper hopefully,” he said.

While some students may be disappointed that they no longer are taking an AP class in Global, Lewis believes that it is not something students will have to worry about.

“We chose Human Geo because it does offer an AP option, so if you are still interested in taking an AP test you still have that possibility by taking the Human Geo course,” he said.

That being said, Lewis still believes that taking AP Euro is beneficial to all students, not just those involved in Global.

“The AP Euro curriculum is still super important to know,” he said. “I encourage people to take that class outside of the Global Academy, or if you’re not part of the Global Academy to sign up for it. It’s really the foundations of western civilization which we are a part of.”

William Brydon, who teaches English 1 and 3 Honors for the Academy, agrees that these changes will be positive. Brydon has always believed that Global is an opportunity for students to take control of their education and learn in ways better suited for them. He feels that removing AP Euro is also helping to remove the influence of stigmas around AP courses from Global Academy to focus more on connecting the three classes as it was originally intended. 

“We think that recommitment to doing what is best for our students is going to lead to more retention between the levels and more excitement about coming into Global,” he said. “There’s still that option to take an AP test at the end, but by not forcing everyone into that box, it becomes more of a choose your own adventure than a one size fits all, and I think that it’s going to make the program more cohesive.”

by Genna Blustin 

Published October 7 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue I