Bethanne’s teaching career has covered almost every imaginable scenario. While teaching in California, she was at a parochial school, teaching middle school math and social studies. She helped pilot the new approach the school was taking to
middle school, including coordinating curriculum and interdisciplinary projects, and was on the accreditation committee. Handling class sizes of close to 40 at times, she quickly honed her classroom management skills while learning the importance
of being available to students as both a teacher and a mentor.
After a move to Texas, Bethanne’s career shifted to the high school level when she took a job in a magnet school for the performing and visual arts in Dallas. As a social studies teacher who mainly taught a subject (US History) that is typically
very linear, Bethanne quickly learned that creative students need creative and non-linear approaches and adjusted her lessons to meet the needs of her students. This opportunity opened up a whole new approach to teaching and led Bethanne to
develop methods and pedagogies that were not typically seen in academic classrooms, making some administrators very nervous. However, after showing that her approaches led to strong test scores, she was given much more leeway to develop her
own strategies outside of the district’s typical approach, earning her Teacher of the Year in 2008-2009.
In 2010, Bethanne changed schools once again, due to marriage and a move, and began to teach at a large, comprehensive high school in Fort Worth, Texas, with a population that was diverse both ethnically and socio-economically. Once again, she
drew on her experience of developing unusual approaches to social studies so that her students would find the subject approachable and engaging. Stories were told instead of dates listed, no topics were off limits during discussions, crayons
and sharpies were often in use and seating charts were thrown out as flexible seating and the constant rearrangement of desks and chairs took over the room. Student choice was frequently the bane of their existence (because when you have to
choose as a student, it forces you to care about a topic, to make decisions and to take responsibility for your learning) and taking stances on issues and supporting their stances with evidence became a point of pride. Bethanne was awarded
the Sewell Lexus of Fort Worth Chair For Teaching Excellence in Humanities in 2013.
Meanwhile, Bethanne was tapped more and more often to take leadership roles on campus, developing professional development opportunities and creating new systems within the school to help students be more successful and to take ownership for their
learning and to help improve school culture through better collaboration between teachers. She was asked to be a part of a research project with Vanderbilt University that focused how to scale up grass-roots efforts to change systems within
public schools, later leading to several publications on teacher leadership and school culture, a presentation at a national conference and several grants with the Department of Education to further develop teacher-leadership roles.
In 2018, Bethanne’s husband took a job in Western New York, changing her trajectory once again. Bethanne began to share her love of teaching with students at the university level who are pursuing careers in education at St. Bonaventure University.
Working with student-teachers and interns in the classroom setting, Bethanne teaches and mentors the teacher-candidates, helping them to find their own philosophy and approach to the classroom while using the research-backed pedagogies they
are mastering.