Reporting from Athens: new teacher alert, Lauren Gavalas! Gavalas, casually known by her students as Ms. G, is a brand new AICE teacher teaching Algebra 2 Honors.
Born and raised in Greece, one of her favorite memories was, “Everyday on the way figure skating practice we would pass by the Parthenon and it was so interesting to think about the history and how many generations would pass by it,” said Gavalas.
Lauren is a part of the AICE program at the University of Notre Dame. AICE is a masters program where you are assigned to a school and teach for 2 years and attend masters classes during the summer at Notre Dame. “There are 3 pillars of AICE community, spirituality, and education,” said Gavalas. She was introduced to this program through a class called Moreau, which is a mandatory class for all Notre Dame freshmen where they learn about all the programs available to them. “My professor told me I would be a perfect fit for the AICE program because of the way I wanted to run a classroom,” said Gavalas.
Being a teacher has always been a dream for Lauren, “when I was little I would line my stuffed animals up and give them different lessons instead of doing my homework,” recalls Ms. G. However, Gavalas did not always love math. “When I was in elementary school I thought I was bad at math, I asked my teacher a question and she told me not to ask dumb questions,” recalls Lauren. She loves to study and teach math because she believes math is proof that God exists. “I want to be the reason a student feels confident in math or likes math,” said Lauren. She feels very strong against the stigmatism with math, everyone can do hard things.
- Gavalas in her figure skating days (Courtesy of Lauren Gavalas)
While Lauren Gavalas has only been at Kenny for around a month, she has had very high impressions so far. “Students always come to class with an open mind and ready to learn, the teaching staff here at Kenny has also been a blessing,” said Gavalas. When asked about her plans on what she wishes to do after her 2 years at Kenny she said that she wants to go back to school and work on getting her doctorate in math education. “I want to teach people how to teach math,” said Ms. G.
Whether you see her in the hallway or in her classroom, make sure you give a warm welcome to our new teacher Lauren Gavalas.
