Introducing Amy Gerhardt and her Path to Teaching

Amy Gerhardt
Mathematics Teacher, Newark Street School
Kingdom East School District
Lyndonville, Vermont

Amy Gerhardt: Intelligent, Creative, Kind, Curious, Attentive

I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Amy Gerhardt during her planning period one crisp, clear, gorgeous morning in northeast Vermont just before February school vacation. During this initial conversation, I gained insight into Amy's role as an educator and explored both her professional journey and some aspects of her personal path that led her to her current position as a mathematics teacher at Newark Street School.

Later, after a short transitional break, I watched Amy in the classroom where she adopted the persona of French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. Dressed in black with a thought bubble reading “I think, therefore I am,” she creatively connected historical context to the Cartesian Coordinate System, which was the subject of the class’s study. She further engaged students by reading historical fiction regarding Descartes’ motivations, supported by illustrations displayed on the SMART Board.

Amy is recognized as a distinguished teacher at the Newark Street School. She is intelligent, curious, and intrigued by her students. Her creative approach to teaching and her attentive engagement with students is impressive.

Amy’s path to becoming a teacher was a tad circuitous, though largely focused, as is the case with many of her peer colleagues in VREC’s “Voices” Project.

Introducing Amy Gerhardt and her Path to Teaching

Amy’s journey to becoming a teacher was somewhat non-linear, yet largely direct, reflecting a common experience among her colleagues participating in our “Voices” Project.

I was a biology major and was pretty convinced that was what I wanted to do. And then I transferred into Dartmouth [from Brown] and realized they had a teaching prep program. So, I thought, Ooh, I am kind of curious about this. ...although I was seriously dissuaded from being a teacher by my mom who was a super devoted, amazing teacher. But I was interested anyway, so I did their teaching preparation program and fell in love with teaching.

I double majored. I kept my biology major. I stayed on that fall after I graduated college to do student teaching, and then decided, this is where I want to be and what I want to be doing.
Afterwards, I went on to teach middle school down in Fairlee. Rebecca Holcomb was my first principal.

Amy grew up in Corinth. And then her family moved to Norwich for her high school years. But more interestingly...

Eventually, I did go back to school and became a pediatric PA [physician’s assistant], and did family practice briefly, ten years later. But I found I really missed teaching kids. Missed the kids. Missed the teaching. So, I was always with kids. Always with kids, and I missed the creativity of teaching with medicine. If you get too creative with medicine, you can get in trouble. You can get creative with kids, with teaching. Also, kids are creative and inspire creativity. It flows both ways. So, I left teaching briefly and then quickly came back to it.

Amy’s Path to the Northeast Kingdom, to a Rural Area in Northern Vermont

My husband at the time took a job up here with NorthWoods Stewardship Center. And we wanted to raise our children in a rural place. Having grown up in Corinth, I loved being in a rural environment, being able to be outside a ton. And I wanted the same for my own kids. So, we bought a house in Newark, and both of my kids went through Newark Street School. And I got to have them both as students during that time. So, that was how we wound up here.

Amy has taught all subjects, and most grades, and is now focused on teaching math. She has also done intervention. We’ll hear more about that later. Her two daughters have now grown older.

One's a freshman in college and the other one's at the [St. Johnsbury] Academy as a sophomore.
My oldest is a freshman at MIT. She's a big math science person.

I left Brown because I hated the city. I wanted to be back in a rural place. Dartmouth was a little bit more rural. At least you could get outside.

My daughter did think about going to Dartmouth and then went to MIT. Now she is thinking about transferring too. She misses the woods; she misses the trees ...

My younger one wants to experience a big city. So, we'll see. And that's part of the beauty of being able to make choices and then change your mind and not be stuck.

What Amy loves about teaching. What keeps her teaching?

There's just so much energy and every day is different. There's so much change and kids always come in with different thoughts, different thinking, different things that make you wonder, how do I approach this differently? Because this kid isn't understanding this. Or just hearing their stories. I think their energy and their passion is just captivating. It keeps it lively. The days fly by. Being curious, right? And they figure it out and often do so on their own.

They tell us tons about what works for them. I think that also allows us to keep learning, right?
I'm always learning new content. And learning new methods and learning new ways of presenting something. It's always fun to just read and learn more about whatever we are doing. We just keep deep diving into things. I'm always interested in learning more.

Amy’s been teaching for approximately 25 years. She taught briefly in Colorado, taught in Fairlee, worked as a PA, returned to teaching, and is now here in the Northeast kingdom. She first taught in Sutton and is now in Newark. She’s enjoying the ability to specialize a little bit, to work at a different pace, focusing on one thing has been nice. Amy’s outside interests fuel her current work, and her work in intervention has allowed her some freedom to pursue her interests in the fiber arts.

I'm doing some intervention groups with kids, too, and enjoying that. That gives me more time to do things that I want to do outside of school. So, I’ve been getting back into fiber arts. I'm a spinner and a weaver. We used to have sheep and goats, so I see doing more of that as I have more time available with my kids growing older and moving out of the house. I started to love fiber arts as a kid. ... My grandparents taught me to knit and crochet. Just making those big, huge Afghans. I've always found it very calming; it calms my brain. Or if I'm watching a movie with the kids, I just [work with my hands].

Outdoors Orientation, Passion, and Practice

Amy is a cross-country skier. Part of what keeps many veteran, experienced teachers in rural areas, in the Northeast Kingdom in particular, is getting outside during school or in personal time. Not only being outside, but getting students outside, which facilitates more place-based and personalized learning.

And we're super fortunate that we have time in the morning, “Power Hour”! So, for the last couple months I've been doing cross country skiing with kids.

Every morning starts with power hour. During that time, students can choose activities. So, I did cross country skiing and snowshoeing alongside students for the last couple months. They get to choose some sort of activity. Most of the activities are outside, but some are in the gym. They can choose to do, say, handball in the gym. Or walking, yoga, hockey out in the driveway. And most teachers offer something. Doing something to get them out and moving. First thing. Then we have things to write about or calculate later. ...such as we need new, different shoe sizes for our snowshoes. How can we size up our collection, find average sizes for the ages we have? We've done that. We figured what sizes we need and considered ways we can get donations.

And then we ski at the mountain one day a week, too. Eight weeks. So, we go ski for eight weeks at Burke. And this is maybe the second year that all the students go to the mountain. Before, some of them used to stay here and do cross country or snowshoe.

But now they all go, because it was more like kids that couldn't afford to get equipment. So, now we were able to raise [the funding]. Everyone's been willing to give it a go. I guess we had one kid who snow shoed there last year 'cause he wasn't ready. But this year he hopped on downhill skis! The beauty is that the whole school does this together.

I mean, it's wonderful that we can put everybody on a bus and Tim [Mulligan, Newark’s Principal] is our bus driver. He's amazing.

When I arrived at school to meet Amy, I was ready to ring the bell, when Principal Tim met me at the door to let me in - as he was taking out the trash and recycling. This is what happens in a small community school. People play multiple roles to make it work. Principal, instructional leader, bus driver, doorman/host, trash and recycling hauler...

Yeah, he's pretty amazing. Our secretary used to be our bus driver and our librarian. All this really builds community though, this was especially true when my own children were in the school, it was just an extended community.

And that's true for the kids too. By eighth grade they're like siblings with classmates. And maybe it builds a little more integrity. They’re held accountable, and understanding, I think as well. Because everybody's seen everybody through challenges or some sorts of things that are hard. The downside is they know exactly how to get under each other's skin like siblings, and poke. I'm very happy that my kids were able to grow up here and go through a rural school system. I think you end up appreciating it later in life when you go somewhere else, and realize, oh, I took for granted the ability to just see and be in mountains and trees and not be stuck in traffic.

It never appealed to me to be in administration. I guess I would just miss the kids too much. ...it is so much fun watching them evolve and change.

I love how kids think differently. That always makes you wonder. And sometimes changes your own thinking too.

For example, wait, so why are you doing it that way? It's fascinating. With math too, the ways that kids come up with different ways to do things. It's amazing. And how did you figure that out?

The way that some kids, and they'll tell you, the powerful ways to manipulate things in their heads that I would not have ever thought to do.

Amy continues to teach because she enjoys seeing student growth and creative thinking, especially in math where students often devise solutions she might not have considered. She finds their unique perspectives inspiring, staying open to those moments that fuel her curiosity and prompt her to rethink her own views. Observing how each student learns and adapts continues to fascinate her and affirms her commitment to her role—she is happy where she is and has no plans for change in the foreseeable future – fortunately for the Newark Street School Community.