Karen Washington

“Time,” that’s how Karen Washington responds when asked what her biggest challenge is as an educator. “So much to teach, so very little time.” So how does Karen, who has been teaching for 19 years, and currently teaches U.S. History at Greater Lowell Technical High School in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, overcome this challenge?

Some of the tools that help are BRI’s materials and programs. “I like BRI resources because I can tailor them to my students’ needs without losing the beauty of the lesson. The seminars help to reinforce the lessons and help me find new ways of presenting them. And I make new teacher friends.”

Karen has a Master’s in History and a Master’s in Education, and her favorite figure from history is Theodore Roosevelt because he “seemed unstoppable and got the job done. Plus he created so many national parks.”

She loves using the ELL edition of BRI’s Being an American curriculum because of the collection of activities it contains for her students and its focus on slavery and the Declaration of Independence.

Karen notes two accomplishments when asked about her proudest achievement as an educator: “My poster presentation for a unit on the Constitution at the 2013 NCSS National Conference. It was completely exhausting, but an amazing experience. My next proudest moment was creating our USIII curriculum aligned with the new Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.”