Faculty Spotlight

1. How long have you taught at Bush and what drew you to working here?
   
   This is my second year at Bush, and my eleventh year in education. I love that Bush promotes experiential learning. It allows me to bring my full self to my work. Here at Bush, I don't just teach History and French. I also get to teach and explore other passions such as Photography and Watercolor Painting.

2. Describe Bush Middle School in three words.
   
   Vibrant, Balanced, and Experiential.

3. What is your favorite thing to do on the weekends?
   
   One of the things I love about Seattle is all of the greenery and water, so I enjoy spending time hiking new trails and also walking around the lake with my dog, Sequoia. I also enjoy making time for creativity, which currently includes watercolor painting and making pottery on my wheel in my garage-studio.

4. What part of teaching most inspires you?
   
   I feel most inspired by my students' genuine curiosity and excitement about learning. Both of my subjects - History and French - involve learning about cultures, peoples, and ways of life, and I love getting to see how my students approach these subjects with deep curiosity for the world around them.

5. What is the best part of your job?
   
   I enjoy getting to know my students on a human level, beyond who they are in the classroom. Our students are so many things - kind, creative, curious, athletic, artistically talented, and so much more. Working in a close community gives me this opportunity.

1. How long have you taught at Bush and what drew you to working here?
   
   I am entering my third year of teaching at the Bush School. What drew me to Bush was the school’s outward commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and its emphasis on community engagement and immersive education. As a hiker and ecological poet, I loved the school’s rich outdoor recreation programming.

2. What is your favorite book to teach?
   
   As an English teacher, this question is difficult for me to answer, but if I had to choose, it would be Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Potawatomi Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer plaits Indigenous knowledge, her narrative as a mother, scientist, and educator, with scientific wisdom. This lyric essay collection interrogates how we build more just and reciprocal relationships with the more human world. Amid climate despair and eco-anxiety, this text has become a staple in my Ecological Literature classes to cultivate hope, renewal of awe, and tenable solutions in the ongoing fight against climate change.

3. What are your favorite things about being a part of the K-12 community?
   
   I’m in awe of the innovation my colleagues and their students foster in their classrooms across Bush’s campus. I grew up in a multigenerational household with my grandmother, sisters, and niece. Our house ricocheted with lively conversations about all kinds of things. Bush feels akin to this, where each chance encounter in the hallway could lead to an unexpected collaboration or new idea. One of these passing conversations led to a future collaboration between my Ecological Literature class and lower school students, who will create picture books about protecting vulnerable and endangered species across the West Coast.

4. What is your favorite part of teaching?
   
   I’ve stated many things I adore about this work, but my students are the most inspiring part of my job. On days when I am depleted or haven’t had enough coffee, Bush’s students invigorate me with their humor, passion, curiosity, tenacity, and creativity.

5. What era would you time travel to and why?
   
   Recently, I’ve found myself inspired by the futurist and speculative traditions of Octavia Butler, Eve Ewing, Alexis Paula Gumbs Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and adrienne mareee brown. Instead of traveling back in time, I’d like to visit a distant future, even for a few days, to bring back solutions, warnings, and intelligent words to live by.

1. How long have you taught at Bush and what drew you to working here?
   
   This is my fourth year teaching Kindergarten at Bush! Much of my prior experience in education was in early childhood education. Teaching Kindergarten has been such an exciting place to get to use my knowledge and apply it in this next phase of child development. I was drawn to Bush’s hands-on learning approach, strong sense of community and social emotional education focus. I love learning alongside students as we make sense of the world around us.

2. What is your favorite thing about being a part of the K-12 community?
   
   Bush has such a strong sense of community. Being in my fourth year at the school, it is so wonderful to now know and have taught so many of the students in the Lower School. It is incredible getting to watch students continue to grow as they move through the grades! I love having conversations at recess, connections during buddy times and moments passing by in the hallway to continue to connect with past students. The Kindergarteners are paired up with 3rd grade buddies each year. This year, the 3rd graders were my first group of Kindergarteners at Bush. I look forward to spending time with the Buddies as they feel so eager to take on a leadership role and share memories and wisdom from their time in Kindergarten.

3. What is your favorite memory from Bush?
   
   One of my favorite memories from Bush is the first time we built a pretend play area in the classroom based on all of the students' ideas. We had been reading a book, Zoey and Sassafras, about a girl who helps take care of magical creatures. As we were thinking about what would be a fun play area to make in the classroom, we asked the students what they thought? As soon as someone shared the idea of “Zoey and Sassafras”, the room erupted in excitement! Each child was involved in thinking of an idea and creating items to bring the area to life. It was so fun to watch them walk in each day as the area was “under construction” with a huge smile on their face to see what new things were there. Once we collected all of the things the students had thought of and created the pretend barn to play in, there was constant joy in play! Every student took turns immersed in the pretend world they had created and had such ownership over it, since it was their idea! Even the students who didn’t usually choose pretend play were deeply involved in the imaginative scenarios created each day.

4. What part of teaching most inspires you?
   
   I am constantly inspired by the awe, joy and curiosity of learners. The look on a student's face when they learn something new and accomplish something that felt challenging are some of the best moments of my day. I am deeply inspired by students' sense of wonder and love investigating the questions that they ask as they make sense of the world around them. I really enjoy growing alongside students each day and learning with them as we go. I am also so inspired by my colleagues who have such amazing ways of engaging with students and building such an incredible community at the Bush School.

5. What is your go-to Commons lunch?
   
   Any of the yummy vegan dishes they make!

Juliana Cantarelli Vita - Lower School School Music Teacher

1. How long have you taught at Bush, and what drew you to work here?
   
   I have taught at Bush since Fall 2023. What drew me to work here was the explicit focus on racial and social equity, and the emphasis on progressive, hands-on education. The school seemed like a safe place to develop the kinds of social justice projects through music that I have been involved with over the last decade. This was also a return to the elementary world for me; after many years as an K-5 music teacher, my career shifted to teaching higher education and preparing future K-5 music teachers. Bush brought me back to my roots. 

2. What do you like most about teaching Lower School students?
   
   What I like most about teaching Lower School students is that I get to see students becoming themselves, musically. Be in exploration of their own identity in and through music, or in projects where they get to “visit” different places in the world and different ways of understanding and making music, or in the songwriting projects where they write their own songs. It is always a gift to be a witness to their growth, musical sensibilities, and artistic development. 

3. What is something you have learned from your students? 
   
   I have learned that we “can do things even when we they are hard.” I have learned that “it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing,” that “greatness is our destiny,” and that we gotta let our light shine! 

4. If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be? 
   
   I am a musician, a writer, a community organizer, an activist. In terms of career, if I weren’t a teacher, I would be a performer.

5. What is your go-to Commons lunch? 
   
   Whatever they have as hot lunch! I’m from Brazil, and there we eat our big, hot meal in the middle of the day (and our dinners are lighter). So I try to maintain this cultural aspect for my health—in body and mind. 

Camille Laramore - Lower School Teacher

1. How long have you taught at Bush, and what drew you to work here?
   
   I started teaching at Bush three years ago in 2022. I was moving to Seattle from Texas and when looking at schools I immediately fell in love with Bush. I attended a K-12 school growing up and felt like it was such a special family-like experience I would love to be a part of as a teacher. Also, it was evident from the beginning how student centered everyone was, everything was always about how we can best serve our students and cater to the needs of each individual and unique child 

2. What do you like most about teaching Lower School students?
   
   Lower school is a BLAST. Every day there is guaranteed laughter and silliness. Lower school kids are here to have a good time and make everything more fun. I am so lucky I get to spend my days laughing with my people.  

3. What is something you have learned from your students? 
   
   Something my students teach me often is their ability to forgive quickly. Whether it is a small problem or big problem they have a lot of grace and understanding that we are all on a path of learning.

4. If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be? 
   
   I love clothes…probably too much. So if I wasn’t a teacher I would want to do something in the fashion world.

5. What is your go-to Commons lunch? 
   
   I am a pretty consistent salad bar person but I also love their pho!