by Selena Robbins

Q: Tell me about yourself.

A:      Well, I grew up in this district and graduated from Mount View High School in 1990.  As a student here, I enjoyed playing field hockey with Mrs. Hewitt and participating in one-act plays and fall musicals with the drama club. I studied biology and geology in college and then went on to study education as a graduate student.  Before coming to teach here, I taught in southern Maine, overseas at the Lincoln American school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mount View Junior High, and in the Belfast school district. I live in the RSU #3 district with my husband, son Ruben, and dog Woodrow. My other son, Isaac, is off at college in Montana. I am enjoying being back here at Mount View as a teacher!

Q: What makes a ‘good day’ at school?

A:  It is a good day when the lessons I planned go well, meaning students learn something or practice a skill and ideally get a chance to collaborate with each other. 

Q: What inspires you?

A:  I find it inspiring to meet new students and learn about what interests them.  It is also inspiring to meet other educators and learn from their experiences.

Q: How do you remember all of your students’ names?

A:  I try to think of some other connection to help remember their name. For example, is there someone else they look like or some connection I can make with the first letter of their name? For some students, I have a connection or memory with a relative of theirs and that helps. For some reason, it took me a while this year to learn the many names of students who have names beginning with “C”. 

Q: What differences do you see in your morning students versus the afternoon classes? 

A: I think my morning class is sometimes not quite awake yet.  My afternoon group is definitely fully awake. 

Q: If you could grow up in any decade, which would you choose?

A: I think I’d stick with the 70s and 80s. Ponchos and legwarmers…too fun to give up. I still enjoy music from those decades, too. 

Q: What is your dream vacation?

 A:   My dream vacation would be to go hut-to-hut Nordic ski touring in the Alps. Ideally, the hut would have food provided. Skiing, a view, and not hauling my own food would be great! 

by Selena Robbins

Mrs. Sue Von Oesen has joined Mount View High School as a Special Education teacher. She recently sat for the following interview to help us get to know her better.

Q: Tell me about yourself.

A:   I live in Unity with my husband and my three kids.  My oldest son is a Senior at Thomas College, my daughter is a Senior here at MVHS, and my youngest son is at MVMS.  I love reading and hanging out with my family.            

Q: What makes a ‘good day’ at school?

A:  Any day that I feel like I made a difference to a student, either helping them to understand something or listening to them talk about a problem. 

Q: What inspires you?

A:  I’m lucky to be inspired by other teachers in the building and across the district. 

Q: What’s the best/worst thing about being a teacher?

A: The worst thing is worrying about my students all the time. It’s also the best because that means that I have made a good connection with them. 

Q: How do you remember all of your students’ names?

A: I’m lucky that I don’t have that many names to remember, but it did take me two weeks to remember all the kids in my Advisory class. 

Q: What differences do you see in your morning students versus the afternoon classes? 

A: Not much. There isn’t as big of a difference as there is with the younger students.

Q: If you could grow up in any decade, which would you choose?

A:  I would choose the 80s.  I did grow up then, but I would still choose it, as it was the best!

Q: What is your dream vacation?

A: Staying at a cottage on the coast of Maine and just enjoying the beach. 

by Selena Robbins

By Selena Robbins

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mount View High’s new assistant principal, and I asked some questions to help get to know him and his theories on education-related issues.

Mr. David Currier comes to us from Erskine Academy where he taught for nine years in the Social Studies Department. When asked what he does in his spare time, he expressed that with a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a dog, a Vizsla (Veez-Luh) at home, he doesn’t have much spare time, but when he does, he enjoys woodworking and selling small wood pieces.

I asked Mr. Currier what the word success means to him. He sees success as setting and achieving personal goals. With that in mind, I followed up by asking what some of his own personal goals are. He replied, “Personally, I’m trying to get all my logins registered and all of the computer information straight.” He also pointed out that another goal is to clean up and reorganize his office because, in the last 4 years, there have been four different people in it.  

When asked what he thought the most exciting thing happening in education today is, Mr. Currier responded with the following, “The most exciting thing, I don’t know if exciting is the right word, but the thing creating the biggest stir Is the issue of the teacher shortage.” He feels that leaders in the field of Education are looking for ways to compensate for that. He continues by saying, “We’re going to have to have to offer all our traditional courses and also offer all those Twenty-First Century kinds of courses. For example, we want computer science in our classrooms. My father-in-law is in computer science. We can’t afford to have him come to teach you guys coding. We can’t do that. He used to work at Unity as a side hustle for 120 dollars an hour. How could we get someone in here if you’re interested in that route without bankrupting our school?” 

I asked Mr. Currier to tell me about his personal experience as an administrator in a school. He expressed that he has only been an administrator for a few weeks, and each day, he learns more about what he doesn’t know. It has been a whirlwind trying to learn the computer program and processes. 

Finally, I wanted to know what he sees as an immediate challenge to overcome in this position. He felt that overcoming the COVID gap is a challenge for every school in America right now. He continued, “There were a lot of bad behaviors that developed during those years or a lot of bad habits that teachers let slide and administrators let slide,”  and it has been challenging to try to get back to normal.