Sarah Hemphill

Sarah Hemphill is a science teacher who has been teaching for approximately ten years after a previous career in public health. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her children and listening to music.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I love to go hiking, I love to cook and especially bake delicious sweet things and then eat them.

What are you most excited for at the high school?

I like that it is a really progressive and warm community where we care about the students and creating a nice community.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received and who gave it to you?

One of my favorite sayings is “work is love made visible.” Love only means so much unless you find a way to show it in work, and I think about that in my teaching because you have to really love teaching to do it. It really is a love of learning and students that is made visible in the work you do as a teacher but also as a parent and a friend. It takes work to show how you feel about someone or something.

How and when did you know you wanted to become a teacher?

I worked in the health field for a long time, and I really missed the fun daily interactions with people, and I felt like I was sitting in too many boring meetings and having long phone conferences. I was trying to think about something else I wanted to do, and I realized I really like teenagers. I think they are really fun to work with. Other people think they are scary, rude or annoying, and I think they are sort of hilarious and irreverent and wonderfully open to the world, so I realized that I wanted to spend time with teenagers, and I really love biology, so it made sense to combine them.

How has your family influenced you?

I think my parents taught me how fun it is to learn about the world and that curiosity is something you always have, and it is not just something you use at school, but it is something that makes life more fun. My own children, just as they grew up, made me realize how much fun it is to spend time with children and wanted to do that as a job.