A Global Perspective

Laura Jim has led the kind of life you might not expect of a Middle School science teacher.

After graduating with a degree in biology from the University of Oregon, she joined the Peace Corps. Her assignment took her to Ewo, a small West African village in Congo, where she worked for 13 months promoting fish culture and farming. While there, she was caught up in a civil war between government and rebel troops and struggled for 10 days to navigate through a war zone to the French Embassy for eventual military evacuation.

A year later, she was in Pohnpei, Micronesia, again with the Peace Corps, teaching sponge farming and aquaculture at a trade school in Micronesia. She didn’t encounter any rebels there, but she did meet her future husband, Thomas, with whom she has two children who both attend HPA.

As a science teacher in the Middle School, Jim brings a global perspective—and a broad scientific focus—to the classroom. She teaches physics and planetary science to sixth graders. Seventh graders investigate the diversity of life through ecology, life sciences, and environmental issues. Earth and space are the realms of eighth graders. “We’re very much inquiry-based,” she said. “We tap into the environment around us whenever it supports our curriculum, which is often."

“There’s so much science out there,” she said. In addition to hands-on science that includes hikes into native rain forests and snorkel trips supporting the unit of coral reef ecology, she helps her students develop skills for the academic world, such as taking notes and taking tests. “They’re driven,” she said. “They want to succeed. They think it’s cool to be smart.”

Jim also is a residential faculty member, which means she lives on campus along with 21 Middle School boarders from China, Hawai‘i, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Tahiti, Taiwan, and the U.S. mainland. She’s a hall parent, responsible for the four to six students who live in her hall. “It’s not a 9 to 5 job,” she said. “You really get to know your students and see them in a different light. You see where their challenges are, and when you know what those are it gives you insight into your day students who are facing the same things.”