*Social Studies & Financial Literacy*
By: BHS Staff Profiles
September 30, 2022
The Staff Spotlight for this week is Miss Kimberly Cramer. She has been a teacher for three years, two of which have been here at Brooklyn High School. She primarily teaches eighth graders in the social studies content area. Outside of school, Miss Cramer likes to travel, read, hike, and go rock climbing. In addition to traveling, she also has a trip planned for next Summer to Europe for 30 days. An interesting fact you might not know about Miss Cramer is that she once owned a flying squirrel as a pet.
Q: How do you deal with a stressful situation?
A: “I like to just take things one step at a time. I break things down and kind of set small goals, and then once you accomplish a couple small goals, before you know it, you’ll have the whole thing accomplished.”
Q: Describe a time when a student disagreed with your opinion. What did you learn?
A: “I think there are a lot of times when people disagree. But, I’m always under the impression of being interested in hearing everyone’s opinion because I think everyone has useful things to say, and everyone’s opinion has merit and value. So typically, I try to hear people out and make appropriate adjustments based on that. I like hearing disagreements as long as it’s in a respectful manner.”
Q: What is your favorite lesson to teach in eighth grade social studies?
A: “I like talking about the road to the Revolutionary War. And, I also even like talking about the amendments because it relates a lot to today. There can be a lot of things that we talk about that relate to everyone’s current life, like your rights and how it impacts you.”
Q: What is your role as a teacher?
A: “To help people and students, even if they may not like history, become aware and also become life-long learners. History, to most, may be considered ‘boring,’ so being able to possibly spark that little bit of curiosity is my intention. I just feel that it’s important for the kids to see that history is in fact important to learn, and it impacts us today.”
Q: What was it like to try out your job before you fully committed to it?
A: “That was a cool experience. I think the different part was I didn’t know for sure if I was going to stay because Mr. Tanski was unsure if he was retiring or not. I was kind of in the position where I didn’t know that my current job was going to be my permanent job. I hoped it would be, but at the same time, I didn’t because I didn’t hope in any way that Mr. Tanski would leave unless it was something that he wanted. I realized that I loved it here, and I didn’t know much about this school, so it was really cool to have the experience of meeting everyone and getting to know the community before I got the chance to take the job instead of just blindly coming in.”
Q: What is your ultimate life motto?
A: “I would say the quote: ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,’ – Teddy Roosevelt. I am under the impression that no matter how you start, nobody is going to listen to you unless you’re caring and you show that you are actually invested in people. It is my philosophy that everyone in my room knows that I care, no matter what.”
Q: What adjectives would you use to describe your presence in the classroom?
A: “Caring and considerate of everyone’s opinion along with understanding and investigative.”
Q: Throughout your lifetime, what was the scariest experience you had and how did it affect you?
A: “One of the scariest experiences would be working in mental health facilities. Mental health has been a presence in my family and also in my previous job, and I don’t know if I would call it scary but more so eye-opening just seeing how much mental health can affect people’s daily lives and how much it can hurt and impact people and just seeing all different pieces to that. I would say that impacted me the most because I try to be empathetic with everyone who I come into contact with because you never know what other people are going through. You don’t know what is going on in other people’s lives. Everyone has a story, and everyone has things going on. I just try to keep that in the back of my mind and take that into consideration.”
Q: If you had an all-expenses paid vacation to anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
A: “I would really like to hike Machu Picchu. I would also really like to do a whole trip around a couple different countries in Africa.”
Q: What was your childhood dream job?
A: “Believe it or not, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a teacher. I forced my siblings to preschool with me all the time. When I got a little bit older, I wanted to be a psychologist. I didn’t become a psychologist, but I worked in mental health. It always flipped between wanting to be a teacher and psychology.”
Thank you so much, Miss Cramer. It was an honor to meet with you and to get to know a little bit about you, including your flying squirrel. We hope you continue to make a great impact on the students here at Brooklyn High School.
THE RETURN OF THE EYE 