Margot Shane

About Me

I grew up in Bermuda and went to school and college in England. After graduating with a degree in English Literature and following family convention, I spent a number of years training and practicing as a lawyer before realizing that I needed to seek more meaningful work. I sought out career coaching and cycled through a number of different business roles and options, before a chance introduction led to my discovery of Cardinal Manufacturing, a classroom based youth run business. This was exactly what I had been looking for when I was in high school and college; an experiential way of learning what tasks specific jobs entailed and did I enjoy them. In service of that passion, I worked at a personal development organization for teens and facilitated project-based entrepreneurship programs in Bermuda's public middle schools. I completed the San Diego Teacher Residency at High Tech High in order to surround myself with and be mentored by other inspirational project based educators.

Find my teaching philosophy in the Blog section of this page.

Past Highlights

  • Facilitation of Young Entrepreneurs of Kansas activities with two classes of middle schoolers

  • Creation of a Lemonade Day stand with a group of learner who have extensive social emotional and learning needs.

  • Co-creation of assessment criteria for business studies curriculum across four aligned public middle schools.

Key Beliefs

  • Establishing an environment of trust and care enables students to use the humanities as a mirror for and lens on their own identities.

  • All students should have their culture upheld and mirrored back to them through texts they explore and projects they undertake.

  • Just as students should be able to experiment with their identities through their reading and writing, a humanities classroom should offer the opportunity to experiment and develop with different modes of career relevant writing.

Goals

  • Creating and executing projects that leverage literacy skills to create value in students communities.

  • Deepening and strengthening my practice of identity centric culturally responsive pedagogy.

  • Obtaining my Masters and Professional Level Credential.