History, psychology, and law teacher, Rachel Shook has always wanted to be a teacher. In second grade, she used to draw with chalk on her closet door and teach her stuffed animals history.
“I just think it was always something that I wanted to do. I used to pretend to be a teacher when I was little,” said Shook.
Shook teaches three courses this year: Intro to Criminal Law, Honors World History, and Intro to Psychology. Shook teaches period A and B – Honors World History, period E – Law and periods D and H – Criminal Law. However, these three classes are all very different.
Honors World History focuses on the time period from the Renaissance to the Reformation. This includes the unit on Imperialism. Next year, Shook hopes to get through the unit of Decolonization during this class.
The Honors World History curriculum was changed this year to become more modern, covering topics in a modern way that connects past and present. In previous years, Shook found the material difficult to get through, but she likes the new curriculum; “I’m really loving the new World History curriculum this year. [But] If you had asked me that question last year, I’d probably say Psychology.”
“We’d only really get through maybe the Middle Ages, some years didn’t even get that far.”
Shook also enjoys how the new curriculum is easier to make connections to what happens today, which is engaging and more enjoyable to teach and to learn about. “You can still see the effects of those connections and the ramifications, implications of all of that today.”
The curriculum changed starting with the Eliot curriculum, wanting to add more world history to it. In turn, they took on the Ancient World History curriculum that Mrs. Shook used to teach. This made it so that 10th grade history class would start with the Renaissance unit, where they used to end. Fellow History teacher, Mr. Meizies, helped Ms. Shook rewrite the curriculum.
Shook enjoys how history is about humans and how we got here, and everything leading up to the present. She believes that thinking about history can change how we view the present.
Shook attended East Haven High School. She then went on to receive a teaching degree at Southern Connecticut State University. After graduating, she began teaching at Morgan in 2004. Teaching at Morgan was her first job out of college, which makes this school year her 21st year teaching, and she has loved it ever since.
In college, Shook’s favorite class was art history. These themes appear in what she teaches her students today. Specifically, her favorite unit from Honors World History is the Renaissance because of the art work, and how it connects to her college class, studying similar topics.
The similarities between the class Ms. Shook took and her class that she teaches today are how they both include units on Italian and Northern Renaissance art. Along with this, both include changes during the Enlightenment, and Baroque and Rococo art.
Shook has a close relationship with many of her students, which makes her classroom fun and educational at the same time.
Sophomore Saoirse O’Beirn takes Honors World History with Shook. “I’ll always remember the time when she told everybody they should be taking notes, and I looked up at her, and she made a comment about me shooting her daggers with my eyes. I love how we have such an established relationship.”
Small moments and the feeling Shook gets from teaching is what makes her stick with it and enjoy what she does.
“The ah ha moment when a student or the class finally gets it. Or the class when you blink and it’s over because everyone was so engaged in the lesson and the content; those make for great days and remind me why I am a teacher,” closed Shook.
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