Kyle Wiggins is a new addition to the Northwest Academy staff this year, currently instructing English & Humanities III and the Comic Books and Graphic Novels elective.
“I’ve taught at the University of Montana, Brandeis University, taught at Harvard for a little while and then the last teaching stop before Northwest Academy was at Boston University for six years,” he says.
Wiggins says that Northwest Academy is a far more unique experience compared to the other schools he has taught at.
“The student population is different,” says Wiggins. “The high school students are at a different point in their academic journey, and the school itself is much smaller in terms of population and community size than any other experience.”
Enthusiastic about this change, Wiggins says that working with the same students for a whole year is completely new for him.
“The chance to work with students for an entire academic year is really unique to my teaching experience and just awesome,” he says. “I’m so impressed with the way that the students and the teachers here approach the learning process with such creativity, fervor and excitement.”
Wiggins says that the environment at NWA is “eager” and “excited to be back in person,” even if building a community amidst a pandemic is a work in progress.
“As far as a sense of community, it’s a little bit tricky because we’re all trying our very best to stay safe with our COVID protocols and how that influences the shape of community,” he says.
Wiggins says that this is his first time instructing during Covid, only hearing from fellow teachers about the experience prior to NWA.
“My teaching is sort of like marked by the before times and then the after times,” Wiggins says. “I left Boston just before Covid, and then started with Northwest Academy this year. A lot of my teacher friends have been trying to navigate the pre-Covid times. I’ve heard a lot of interesting stories about it, so I think I’ve kind of experienced it maybe secondhand.”
In addition to instructing EH III, Wiggins teaches the Comic Books and Graphic Novels elective. He says the class is studying the medium and its evolution, primarily in North America.
“The course is a little bit of a hybrid in the sense that you spend a good amount of time studying the comic book medium as a field of interest,” says Wiggins. “We’re reading amazing comics and graphic novels, and we’re analyzing them from a sort of academic perspective.”
He says that the class is reading some great things and that the students are doing excellent work.
Chris Schuck, the Head of School, says that arriving at a new school during Covid is not without its challenges, but Wiggins has had a successful first year.
“I cannot even fully imagine the challenges of being a new teacher amidst a pandemic,” Schuck says. “Perhaps the greatest special challenge is that it is much harder to feel you are getting to know someone well when everyone is masked up…and in so many ways, a good school depends on the relationships that students form with teachers and among themselves…all made more difficult by masking.”
Schuck says that when looking for an English & Humanities instructor, a passion for literature is essential.
“When we hire an English-Humanities teacher, we are looking for an educator whose love for reading and writing and critical thinking overflows into their work,” Schuck says. “We seek teachers with experience teaching adolescents and young adults in ways that serve their intellectual and creative growth.”
Elly Neiberg, one of Wiggins’ students, says that her experience in EH III has been nothing short of a success.
“I’m enjoying it so far,” she says. “The amount of reading we’re doing is a big contrast to my public school, but I like reading so it’s been fun. I’ve also enjoyed the class discussions and the Communicare stuff we’ve been doing.”
Neiberg says the class is currently “talking about Modernism, which is interesting to me because I’ve heard it mentioned before but I never quite knew what it was.”
Photo by Aaron Drummond
