This year, the school has a new teacher. Teacher Nicholas Confer (they/them) is in their first year of teaching at the school but their third year of teaching. They taught for two years in their home state of Michigan. There, they taught honors chemistry, earth science and physical science. They are the first nonbinary teacher to join the school community. Teacher Confer teaches general and intensified chemistry at the school, so they teach almost all of the sophomores, a handful of juniors and a smaller handful of seniors. This is their first year of teaching in Arlington and their first year living outside of Michigan.
Teaching at a school with so many students is new to Confer. The school has roughly 1,100 more students, a big difference from Confer’s old school in Michigan. In Michigan, there were around 1,400 people compared to our school, which has more than 2,500 students.
“One thing that’s been challenging is the size,” said Teacher Confer. “I’m used to knowing almost all the teachers in the school, versus here, I know maybe a third or a quarter of teachers.”
Something that has stuck out to Teacher Confer was the support and allyship of other teachers and admin at the school.
“[The] staff are super supportive, especially the other chemistry staff,” said Teacher Confer. “[I’m] so lucky to have very organized co-workers, so it makes my job much easier because I can figure out what kind of stuff of theirs I like to use and rework things the way I like them.”
When asked how they keep their classroom safe for everyone, they provided an example they used in class.
“We did a nuclear activity where we looked at all different phenomena,” said Teacher Confer. “One of the things I put in the assignment was like, ‘hey, let’s think about how we’re going to talk about this,’ because for a lot of us, we don’t care, but [nuclear energy] kills people, or somebody might have a family member that went through radiation therapy, so be prepared for those conversations that might come up [because we could hurt or offend somebody].”
Confer enjoys teaching high school the most out of all grade levels.
“I like seeing the growth because you definitely see it throughout the year and year to year,” said Teacher Confer. “I like being a part of helping [students] figure out, like, ‘Oh, I can do things as a learner. I could be much more independent than I thought I could be in the past.’”
Confer also gave excellent advice on how they could help students find their identity.
“I guess the best piece of advice [is to] find your people,” said Teacher Confer. “That can mean a few different things. Find your people in the school. Try out new clubs, especially ones that you think might help you figure out your identity.”
Confer also stresses the importance of joining clubs and finding activities to find your identity.
“I know we have a GSA [Gender and Sexuality Alliance] that would be helpful. But [join clubs outside of the LGBTQ+ community because] you [may] think, I want to go and join the science club, or join a knitting club. Find your people, even if it’s something that you don’t think would relate to your quote-on-quote identity. You might find people that you look up to or that you want to emulate some part of. The last thing would be to educate yourself. This, for me, was like figuring out my identity; a lot of that was some YouTube and learning what it looks like to live as a gay man. So learning how that looks for people, how it’s not that different, and what terminology people use, and figuring out what feels comfortable.”
