Ahern Dickson, 8th Grade Geography Teacher
What do you enjoy about teaching at St. Agnes-St. Dominic?
One of the things I enjoy most is the community. When I was growing up, school was always one aspect of life, and community, friends, and family were another. So to see that intertwined in a unified way where families take care of each other kids, they work together to get kids where they're going, and they support each other in a Christian environment really drew me in and is one of my favorite things.
Why did you want to become a teacher?
I wanted to become a teacher, specifically an 8th grade teacher, because as a child, I felt that middle school is the point where I lost my way a bit. My identity was molded a lot during my middle school years, and I didn’t have a male role model of a teacher at that time. I want to fill that gap that I saw in young people’s lives, especially with boys becoming men. (I wanted to be a musician at first!)
What makes the Jr. High experience at St. Agnes and St. Dominic so unique?
I think the dual school classrooms make it unique. Technically, we have boy/girl mixed classrooms, but the boys adhere to the St Dominic code and girls follow the St Agnes code. This provides a unique experience for them to learn to be in a co-ed environment while simultaneously being separate from it; it’s like being in the world but not of it. They can develop and communicate together but also form bonds within their own brotherhood and sisterhood.
How do the Dominican Pillars of Study, Prayer, Community, and Service inspire life at SAA-SDS?
The pillars are the foundation of every single aspect of SAA-SDS. They trickle down even into smaller decisions: philanthropies, what field trips we take, the things we study, parties we have, and our perspective on everything we do. It impacts my work with students because it gives us a central focal point - the Gospel. No matter what we are studying or what unit we may be in, it gives us a starting point that we want to teach/learn from.
What do you hope students take away from your classes?
From my class, I hope my students learn how it is our God-given duty to take care of the Earth and to be on the just side of history. I hope to cultivate generations of objective thinkers. Not people that align their decisions based purely from political factions or cultural norms of the time, but those can look at the world through the lens of the gospel and make their decisions based on that.
What are some of the ways you bring lessons to life?
My classroom takes the approach of “game-based learning”. Because of this, lots of games and simulations are used in my classroom. The students get no real warning for when we will start a new simulation, so the calculated risk is inherently implemented into the activities and they make decisions differently because of it. This really fosters critical thinking and is helpful in future classes.
Favorite Authors?
Tim Keller (Counterfeit Gods, The Meaning of Marriage, The Reason for God)
Paul E. Miller (A Praying Life)
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson series)
Brian Jacques (Redwall series)