About Me:
Dear Animas High School Parents, Students, Staff & Faculty:
My name is Shane Nelson, and I am completely inspired by your School. Last year, I was a School Psychologist with San Juan BOCES. In 1992 I came to Durango with a mohawk and a dream. After graduating from Fort Lewis, I spent 15 years traveling the globe, experiencing, learning, evolving…living. Last May I completed the School Psychology Education Specialist Program at the University of Northern Colorado.
I feel it is now time to unleash the teacher I may have inside myself.
Why I want to work at AHS?
My first exposure to AHS came while sitting in Durango Joe’s. Without warning, I was surrounded by your students as they presented both sides of divisive and volatile topics. I engaged in intelligent dialogue with vibrant minds taking ownership of not only their material, but the moment. I challenged them and they responded. I saw what it is I’ve been hoping for.
Education should be about the crafting of character. Critical thinking, preparedness, presentation and participation are essential now more than ever. It is vital that developing minds know their perceptions are neither static nor constant. Once that is known, it is their character that can captain the ship and dictate the course.
I was given a tour by a young man who wanted to do the best job he could sharing his school with a stranger. I saw project based learning. I saw groups, not just cliques of kids expressing their style and skills. I saw the value of a space created to serve those pursuing a different way to access quality education. I left needing to know more.
Why is what I teach Important?
For me, traveling exposed me to the world. This includes the cultures created by a commitment to God. Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism, Christianity and Buddhism all have their beauty and value. I also know what happens when these beliefs collide. I’ve seen tribal cultures that refuse to vanish and the teachings of their ancestors fighting destruction by the machines of the modern day. I’ve experienced the ways of the East African Masi, Native American Hopi and Navajo, South American Shamans, and the Pamon of Venezuela. It is culture, both present and past, that make us who we are today. Each one is part of us all.
Education is everywhere. My goal to teach students that perceptual boundaries of learning are only real if we make them so. Education is a personal path. One must walk alone at times if they are to meet those there to inspire and dare young minds to carry on. In the spirit of Joseph Conrad’s “Heroes Journey,” the lessons imparted, become the armor necessary for the challenges ahead. It is those living a courageous life, that will face the greatest adversity.
Humanities is the study of the self, told by the stories of society. Students should know, that the ways of the world today are due to the acceptance of them by those before us. The quality of teaching can be the difference between acceptance and creation.
Why would students want me as a teacher?
The cards I lay upon the table, the tales I tell, are of travels through humanity as it is today. The lessons I have to offer aren’t merely academic and anecdotal, they are alive. I absolutely value the process and procedures that allow me to meet students where they need to be met. I teach to guide learners to places they may not have known they could go. I bring passion and purpose in many ways and many modes.
I stood in Johannesburg as Nelson Mandela claimed the power of a President. I’ve received blessing bestowed by the late Pope John Paul and heard the teachings of the Dali Llama’s first hand. The day the Twin Towers fell, I was deep in a canyon. None of us knew the world had changed the day we reemerged. In North Africa, I found myself surrounded by Muslim men, the morning after Osama Bin Laden was killed. Every American should know what happened next. I feel it is my duty to share examples such as these.
The opportunities to cut my teeth with the Colorado Outward Bound School, working with the youth of South Central and Compton, leading a surgical expedition through the Himalayas and as a field producer for the Discovery Channel, instilled in me my perceptions of humanity. That perspective reaches far beyond those offered up in a 24-hour news cycle.
Each of these opportunities came with the sacrifice, of my own comfort and the facing of fear. It was only trumped by the promise of adventure. By saying “YES” to a leap of faith, life was able to carve onto me a hard-earned personal world view I now hold sacred. I aim to provide the inspiration for students to find the “YES” waiting and whispering inside themselves.
I feel it is the job of a teacher to find the connection point. Discovery of the student, within the child, is the prize. I have learned what it is to be human through real life experience and formal education. I’ve seen the broad and confounding paradox contained in our humanity. The power we have is that of choice. People make choices, but choices make people. The importance of what I teach lies in opening minds to choices they may not know they have.
Finally, I hold students accountable. Not just to their behaviors or actions, but to the capacity of their character. True education is the introduction between a young mind and the person who knows their true power and potential, or at the least, one willing to find out.
One Final Thought
On my tour, I saw students that clearly felt the most essential quality in a learning environment. They felt safe. Without a sense of safety, basic survival becomes the only learning available. I also saw a sense of comfort. True learning comes just outside comfortable conditions. I believe in a model that keeps a student safe, yet stretches them beyond the familiar. If expectations are clear, If the bar is held unconditionally high, the culture they create should reflect the quality of the curriculum. If their efforts say otherwise, it may be time to shake the tree, just to see what comes out. As educators, we must become uncomfortable as well.
The true safety is being there to catch them should they fall, but they should not always know we are there.
Sincerely,
Shane Nelson
My name is Shane Nelson, and I am completely inspired by your School. Last year, I was a School Psychologist with San Juan BOCES. In 1992 I came to Durango with a mohawk and a dream. After graduating from Fort Lewis, I spent 15 years traveling the globe, experiencing, learning, evolving…living. Last May I completed the School Psychology Education Specialist Program at the University of Northern Colorado.
I feel it is now time to unleash the teacher I may have inside myself.
Why I want to work at AHS?
My first exposure to AHS came while sitting in Durango Joe’s. Without warning, I was surrounded by your students as they presented both sides of divisive and volatile topics. I engaged in intelligent dialogue with vibrant minds taking ownership of not only their material, but the moment. I challenged them and they responded. I saw what it is I’ve been hoping for.
Education should be about the crafting of character. Critical thinking, preparedness, presentation and participation are essential now more than ever. It is vital that developing minds know their perceptions are neither static nor constant. Once that is known, it is their character that can captain the ship and dictate the course.
I was given a tour by a young man who wanted to do the best job he could sharing his school with a stranger. I saw project based learning. I saw groups, not just cliques of kids expressing their style and skills. I saw the value of a space created to serve those pursuing a different way to access quality education. I left needing to know more.
Why is what I teach Important?
For me, traveling exposed me to the world. This includes the cultures created by a commitment to God. Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism, Christianity and Buddhism all have their beauty and value. I also know what happens when these beliefs collide. I’ve seen tribal cultures that refuse to vanish and the teachings of their ancestors fighting destruction by the machines of the modern day. I’ve experienced the ways of the East African Masi, Native American Hopi and Navajo, South American Shamans, and the Pamon of Venezuela. It is culture, both present and past, that make us who we are today. Each one is part of us all.
Education is everywhere. My goal to teach students that perceptual boundaries of learning are only real if we make them so. Education is a personal path. One must walk alone at times if they are to meet those there to inspire and dare young minds to carry on. In the spirit of Joseph Conrad’s “Heroes Journey,” the lessons imparted, become the armor necessary for the challenges ahead. It is those living a courageous life, that will face the greatest adversity.
Humanities is the study of the self, told by the stories of society. Students should know, that the ways of the world today are due to the acceptance of them by those before us. The quality of teaching can be the difference between acceptance and creation.
Why would students want me as a teacher?
The cards I lay upon the table, the tales I tell, are of travels through humanity as it is today. The lessons I have to offer aren’t merely academic and anecdotal, they are alive. I absolutely value the process and procedures that allow me to meet students where they need to be met. I teach to guide learners to places they may not have known they could go. I bring passion and purpose in many ways and many modes.
I stood in Johannesburg as Nelson Mandela claimed the power of a President. I’ve received blessing bestowed by the late Pope John Paul and heard the teachings of the Dali Llama’s first hand. The day the Twin Towers fell, I was deep in a canyon. None of us knew the world had changed the day we reemerged. In North Africa, I found myself surrounded by Muslim men, the morning after Osama Bin Laden was killed. Every American should know what happened next. I feel it is my duty to share examples such as these.
The opportunities to cut my teeth with the Colorado Outward Bound School, working with the youth of South Central and Compton, leading a surgical expedition through the Himalayas and as a field producer for the Discovery Channel, instilled in me my perceptions of humanity. That perspective reaches far beyond those offered up in a 24-hour news cycle.
Each of these opportunities came with the sacrifice, of my own comfort and the facing of fear. It was only trumped by the promise of adventure. By saying “YES” to a leap of faith, life was able to carve onto me a hard-earned personal world view I now hold sacred. I aim to provide the inspiration for students to find the “YES” waiting and whispering inside themselves.
I feel it is the job of a teacher to find the connection point. Discovery of the student, within the child, is the prize. I have learned what it is to be human through real life experience and formal education. I’ve seen the broad and confounding paradox contained in our humanity. The power we have is that of choice. People make choices, but choices make people. The importance of what I teach lies in opening minds to choices they may not know they have.
Finally, I hold students accountable. Not just to their behaviors or actions, but to the capacity of their character. True education is the introduction between a young mind and the person who knows their true power and potential, or at the least, one willing to find out.
One Final Thought
On my tour, I saw students that clearly felt the most essential quality in a learning environment. They felt safe. Without a sense of safety, basic survival becomes the only learning available. I also saw a sense of comfort. True learning comes just outside comfortable conditions. I believe in a model that keeps a student safe, yet stretches them beyond the familiar. If expectations are clear, If the bar is held unconditionally high, the culture they create should reflect the quality of the curriculum. If their efforts say otherwise, it may be time to shake the tree, just to see what comes out. As educators, we must become uncomfortable as well.
The true safety is being there to catch them should they fall, but they should not always know we are there.
Sincerely,
Shane Nelson