Photo by: Gloria RedlichNathaniel Shaw.
This fall, Nathaniel Shaw stepped into the math post at the Block Island School vacated by Kayla Bourn and held before her for years by James Rondinone. It’s the tall, Rhode Island native’s first full-time teaching position after college, and he brings all the enthusiasm of someone who is embarking on a career he chose when he was just a kid himself.
With his open manner, he is happy to sit down to talk with this visitor from the Block Island Times. But he doesn’t sit for long. He is soon jumping up to illustrate a feature of the smartboard, a sort of chalkboard-sized computer screen that occupies a large section of a wall facing his students. He says the technology helps him bring more flexibility to lesson plans, and helps kids prepare for their futures. “I absolutely love it. I try to use it with each of my lessons.”
He says he’s settling in well to the small island K-12 school, and the different rhythms it has to a mainland school where kids are more segregated by age. “What’s beautiful about the classroom is that it’s always different,” he says, “the kids are different in each class. There’s always learning going on, but it’s never exactly the same even when you’re teaching the same subject.”
Perhaps because he is only recently out of school, Shaw says he’s learning every day, often from his students. He says it helps him identify with how his students feel, and he understands that they want “someone to relate to them.”
Growing up in Coventry, where he attended local schools, Shaw studied at the University of Rhode Island, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in math and secondary education. Because he took additional courses, he also received an endorsement that certifies him to teach grades eight through 12.
His students’ minds are open he says, and have the capacity to absorb a great deal — more, sometimes, than they believe of themselves.
- Gloria S. Redlich -
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