History and English teacher
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To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Christopher Maxwell Donohue. My certification area is secondary Social Studies. During my undergraduate education at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, I had a diverse focus on many different eras in history.
I am extremely interested in joining your institution because I have a lifelong passion for learning and education. I also have recently visited France and fell in love with the country. I had been on a year-long, extended professional leave teaching English to elementary-age students in Spain.
I have learned a lot professionally from this experience teaching different content in a different country to students of a different age. I would greatly value the opportunity to work in a new setting with an entirely different group of students and co-workers.
My first experience as a full-time high school teacher was a two-year tenure as a Social Studies/Theater teacher at Northern High School in Calvert County, Maryland, USA. During my first year, I was given the challenging task of teaching standard and honors U.S. Government (an HSA tested course) while also teaching theater and taking on the responsibilities of the head of the theater department.
I referred to this assignment as challenging because I had no experience running a department, especially one that I was not trained in such as theater. In addition, I was responsible for the upkeep of the auditorium which was used heavily by independent organizations. There were many instances where I was required to stay well into the evening hours and even work on weekends.
That being said, I truly enjoyed the directorial aspect of my theater charge. My second year was simpler. I was assigned five periods of U.S. History and one of Criminal Justice, the latter was a subject I had little experience with.
Planning for these classes was of paramount importance since I had never taught them before and without the theater aspect of the previous year, I had time. I was able to surpass my colleagues in terms of test scores, colleagues who had been teaching the content much longer.
During my five years in Montgomery County at Albert Einstein High School, I taught every required Social Studies course (US History, NSL Government, and Modern World History) as well as a higher-level elective course called IB Global Politics. The latter class required me to formulate my own curriculum within the internationally mandated parameters of the course. I consider IB Global Politics to be one of my greatest successes teaching since many of my students scored very well on the IB test but also because I seemed to instill a lifelong curiosity in the subject in them.
I have also worked extensively with English Language Learners in my on-level classes. This presents a different kind of obstacle in attempting to teach content such as American Government to students who barely speak English. It is one of the main reasons I decided to teach English abroad for a year in a Spanish-speaking country so that I could better serve my Spanish-speaking students upon my return.
Thank you for considering me and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.
CEIP Josep Gil Hervas Primary School (Spain): English Teacher October 2021-June 2022
Albert Einstein High School: Social Studies Teacher July 2016-Current
Master’s in Teaching: Secondary Social Studies 2012-2013
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Bachelor of Arts in History, Minor in Educational Studies 2008-2012 St. Mary’s College of Maryland
