With both a B.A. and M.A. in history, I’ve been teaching over a decade. I started in Florida, teaching middle school, high school, and eventually adjuncting at a local university. In 2016 I moved to China to teach at an International School.
I am passionate about history and teaching historical thinking skills. Facts and memorization are not what make learning fun and certainly not what attracted me to history.
I believe teachers should always be improving their craft and looking for new and exciting ways of reaching students. A critical part of this is reflecting on your own practice. This blog is my next effort to try and do both of these things while learning a new skill.
I moved abroad because I enjoyed travel but since COVID there has been significantly less of that. Thank goodness China is opening again! When I am not working or traveling around China, I enjoy spending time at various coffee shops. When I lived in Dalian, my cafe of choice was Snow’s Coffee. (If you happen to find yourself in the seaside town of Jinshitan 金石滩 outside of Dalian, you won’t regret a visit.) Since moving to Shanghai I am on a mission to try and find a suitable replacement. According to a recent report I read, there are nearly 8000 coffee shops in Shanghai alone. It should be fun to try as many of them possible while I am here.
Thanks for reading, I hope you find something interesting or useful. Let me know if you do!
-Shane Twaddell