THOMAS PYNE

7330 Routt St. Arvada, CO 80005 | 720-319-9307 | tpyne3@gmail.com

[Principal]
[High School]
[Address Line 1]
[Address Line 2]

[Date]

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing in response to the secondary social studies position posted at [School]. As a teacher, I am committed to
working with all levels of society to provide an optimal and equitable education to anyone who enters my classroom.
Your district desires to create a unified institution where each piece contributes to the successful achievement of every
student by providing them with classrooms with devoted and knowledgeable teachers who share a common vision with
their administration and the school district at large. I am certain that I not only bring a strong content knowledge and
background in social studies, but a philosophy consistent with [District] as I believe every student will succeed when
placed in a supportive healthy learning environment.

As a graduate of the Boettcher Teacher Residency, I have both academic and experiential training in culturally and
linguistically diverse classrooms. As such, I recognize every student has personal experiences and characteristics a
teacher must be aware of should they wish to effectively reach this student. Building strong relationships with students
is something I value because it allows the teacher to leverage experiences into the lesson to differentiate instruction.
Developing these relationships is exceptionally important for the content of social studies as students must learn to not
only place themselves in the world around them, but also to recognize how to engage with people of differing opinions
and values. In my classroom, I make this vision a reality by challenging students to hold conversations with their peers
using academic language while expressing difficult personal beliefs and values during frequent Socratic discussions
and small group workshop activities.

My residency year taught me the importance of establishing a safe place for students to perform learning in. This
process begins before the students set foot in the room. The summer before my residency involved spending time with
my mentor talking about what rituals and routines we would like to see become a part of our classroom. We then
identified the most important rules we would enforce and how we would train the kids to adopt the role of social
scientist. This planning led to a classroom where students were aware of our expectations and the level of devotion we
had for them as people and as students. As a result of this preparation, I watched students blossom into hard workers
because they knew we would do anything in our power to support their success and personal wellbeing.

One of my greatest strengths is my ability to respond in a calm and measured way to high stress situations. The world
of teaching is unique in that we ask one person to place themselves in charge of the learning of a room full of unique
individuals. Not only do these individuals bring daily emotions and experiences into the room, but technology and
other things have the potential to fail and wreak havoc on the best laid plan. Knowing these glitches happen and
responding calmly decreases the stress on students and other staff members. In some ways, this is a product of my
comfort with my content. I have written several lessons on the spot after a catastrophic failure has ruined my previous
plan. The key to success in these situations was to remain calm and quickly modify what was still available in the
classroom to work with my content knowledge. My calm demeanor extends to interactions with colleagues. I believe
in assuming positive intent and being constructive when working through problems. It is this attitude that makes me a
strong addition to any team.

Sincerely,

Thomas Pyne