Katie Gilchrist, Music Director

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher… I wanted to pass on my love for learning,” instrumental music co-director Katie Gilchrist said.

Growing up, Gilchrist had a dream to be involved in education. However, she never knew exactly which subject she wanted to teach. Originally planning to major in history, she shifted paths after discovering a music education pathway in college.

During her senior year of high school, Gilchrist joined a competitive band group that pushed her to strive for excellence. She enjoyed the atmosphere of everybody collaborating and working together

“Being in an environment where everyone was striving toward one goal made me think, ‘I want to do this when I get older,” Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist’s experience growing up in Silicon Valley also shaped her perspective. Surrounded by academic pressure, band was a place where she could relax and be herself. Now, she aims to establish the same environment where she teaches.

“I really just wanted to create that warm and welcoming community kind of oasis for the students here,” Gilchrist said.

Now in her eighth year of teaching, Gilchrist values the sense of community that music creates in her classroom. That sense of connection became especially meaningful this year after the birth of her daughter, Eleanor. In honor of her daughter, Gilchrist conducted a piece she had chosen specifically for her at a concert..

“How lucky are we as musicians to have music to celebrate each other and to celebrate life,” she said.

Gabrielle Juan, Math Teacher

Paly math teacher Gabrielle Juan’s path to becoming a teacher was shaped by inspiration and observation. Growing up, Juan was influenced by her mother, who was a college lecturer who taught English in Taiwan.

“I grew up watching her being a teacher [and] sharing her philosophy about teaching,” Juan said.

However, it was her younger sister’s negative experience with education that had the greatest impact on Juan. As a young child, her sister loved school, but that enthusiasm soon changed after having demoralizing teachers.

“I saw her going from a child who really enjoys school to someone who [was] afraid of school,” Juan said.

This experience stayed with Juan and motivated her to become a teacher herself – not just to teach, but to help create a positive environment for students.

“That inspired me to be a role model for children,” Juan said.

At first, Juan didn’t envision a career in math. In fact, she actually wasn’t good at math in middle school. It was only later, after moving to the United States, that she discovered her love for numbers and ultimately chose to become a math teacher.

Now in her third year of teaching, Juan’s most rewarding moments in class are when students overcome challenges.

“Seeing them [students] struggle, but then figuring it out and having [an] ‘aha’ moment is really rewarding,” Juan said.

Ultimately, Juan advises students aspiring to become teachers to stay invested despite whatever obstacles they may face.

“It [teaching] does take some patience and some grit,” Juan said. “ It will be challenging in the first few years, but stick with it and it will be rewarding.”

Sima Thomas, Teacher Librarian

Librarian Sima Thomas, a Paly alumna herself, had no plans of teaching growing up, and actually wanted to go into the publishing industry.

“The idea of becoming a teacher wasn’t completely crazy to me, but it was just not a job that I thought about,” Thomas said.

Everything changed during her senior year of college after she lost one of her best friends in a drunk driving accident. Because of this tragedy, Thomas decided not to follow her original plan of entering the publishing industry.

“I couldn’t quite bring myself together,” Thomas said. “So I moved to the Czech Republic to teach English, because it was this pretty easy thing to do.”

What began as a way to cope slowly transformed into a career Thomas had never previously envisioned for herself.

“Since I’d already done some teaching, it seemed like a somewhat natural path to go down,” Thomas said.

Thomas eventually returned to Paly and started teaching English before becoming a librarian. To Thomas, the most meaningful part of her job is the space she helps create.

“Anytime a student confides in one of us and says that the library is somewhere they feel really safe… that’s really cool [to me],” Thomas said.

Looking back on her decision to teach, she has no regrets.

“As you live your life, you’ll have these [career-altering] moments and you can go one way or another,” Thomas said. “I just happened to come into this opportunity and I am so grateful, because it’s been an amazing career.”

Quinn Basewitz, Math Teacher

Mathematics teacher Quinn Basewitz kicked off her first year teaching high school students at Paly. Basewitz said she always knew she wanted to be a teacher, though her interest really took root during high school, when she worked as a peer tutor.

“I found it incredibly rewarding when students I worked with, who were retaking Algebra, were proud of their progress,” Basewitz said.

Basewitz’s passion for math, though, preceded her peer tutoring stint.

“I have always loved math,” Basewitz said. “Some of my earliest memories involve spending time with my family and noticing the math all around us — whether we were counting M&Ms at the kitchen table, measuring ingredients while cooking or tallying the colors of cars passing by our porch.”

To further develop her interest, Basewitz attended Swarthmore College, where she double-majored in mathematics/statistics and computer science — plus several education classes each semester. Alongside coursework, Basewitz said she was a part of a teacher preparation program pairing classes with weekly observations in schools.

“Each semester, I spent time in a different classroom, observing fifth- through twelfth-grade classes in public, private, suburban and urban settings,” Basewitz said.

“Seeing such a diverse range of teachers and students helped me understand how classroom culture and teacher expectations shape a student’s experience with math. It made me excited to build my own classroom centered on collaboration and curiosity.”

Now in the process of building said classroom, Basewitz said her favorite part of teaching is having the opportunity to work with students on a daily basis and witness their problem-solving abilities in real time.

However, Basewitz said there exists one prominent challenge in her classrooms: the constant presence of screens.

“I appreciate the school-wide policy to have phone-free classrooms, but even computers can be distracting,” Basewitz said. “It is an ongoing challenge to figure out [the extent to which] screens belong in my classroom — some technology can be helpful in math, and students will have access to screens in college, but they can also prevent students from staying present and engaging with math and each other.”

In honing her classroom culture, Basewitz said she uses a lesson college taught her — the importance of cultivating a more expansive way of thinking about mathematics.

“I realized that higher-level math is less about finding a single correct answer and more about exploring relationships and crafting arguments,” Basewitz said. “Now, as a math teacher, I try to create a space in my classroom that fosters this deeper … type of thinking.”

Alicia Szebert, Chemistry Teacher

Chemistry teacher Alicia Szebert initially worked as a research and development technician for an intraocular lens company, designing lenses for cataract patients.

However, it was a job she found was driven by profit rather than the desire to improve patients’ lives.

“The whole for-profit motive of the business world really did not sit well with me,” Szebert said. “It wasn’t about what made the best product for people’s eyes. … Even when I came up with something that made the lens better, my boss didn’t go through with it because it meant less surgeries [and] then the ophthalmologist wouldn’t make as much money. … So I quit after that.”

She then turned to teaching and never looked back. This move was driven by her enjoyment of tutoring introductory courses in college.

“It was the type of tutoring where you had classes of students, wrote on the chalkboard, and gave lessons,” Szebert said. “That started the idea of teaching [for me].”

In the end, teaching was where she found a sense of fulfillment. Having taught high school science for a total of 16 years and Paly students for 11, Szebert enjoys watching students grow and learn to enjoy the sciences.

“Seeing students learn how to learn and solve problems — those light bulb moments [when] they push through something challenging — you live for that as a teacher,” Szebert said.

Alyssa Bond, ASB Student Activities Director

Associated Student Body (ASB) student activities director and dance teacher Alyssa Bond has always aspired to be a teacher.

“My mom ran a daycare when I was a kid and I would force the children to play school with me and I was always the teacher,” Bond said. “I knew I loved the arts and working with students, so I wanted to stay in the arts and do that by sharing it with and teaching the next generation of artists.”

Each year, Bond looks forward to Spirit Week. 

“It’s always great to see the floats come together, the dancers come together and students increase their engagement with Spirit Week,” Bond said.

Although it is only her second year working with ASB, Bond said that the idea of spirit has always resonated with her and that the connection and community created in a classroom has always felt special.

“I love [the] ‘aha’ moments when a student gets something they’ve been working on or they make a connection or they find something that becomes really important to them and I see that spark light up with them,” Bond said.

Rod Satterthwaite, Journalism Advisor

Rod Satterthwaite, the award-winning adviser of Paly’s Campanile newspaper and InFocus broadcast, began college with the plan to become a veterinarian — though, he said he knew this was not the career he ultimately wanted to pursue.

In fact, Satterthwaite stated this original plan to become a veterinarian was catalyzed by the pressure he found around himself. To comments instructing Satterthwaite to focus on math or science, he always responded, “What about [being] a teacher?” However, according to Satterthwaite, the answer to this question tended to be, “You can’t make enough [money] as a teacher.”

“I got to college, started my vet school training and did not like it at all,” Satterthwaite said. “[I] couldn’t stand the math classes, couldn’t stand the science classes, had terrible teachers, classes of 200 kids and couldn’t get any help.”

While attending Michigan State University, Satterthwaite mentioned he soon realized a pre-veterinary path was not the right path for him. 

“I considered dropping out, taking some time off and trying to figure out what I want[ed] to do with my life,” Satterthwaite said. “I talked to a counselor at Michigan State who [wa]s like, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I [said], ‘I have no idea.’”

Then came his counselor’s recommendation: Take English classes. Soon, Satterthwaite said he began focusing on education classes. This is when he experienced what he called his “lightbulb moment.”

Satterthwaite said he loaded up on both English and education classes before graduating and jumping right into teaching.

“I had to take one class in the summer to graduate, which I did,” Satterthwaite said. “Then I was applying for jobs, and I got one that fall, basically a month after my last class.” 

This role was in Woodstock, Ill., but Satterthwaite said he decided he wanted to live closer to his family in Michigan, where he spent 21 years. 

Satterthwaite was then in Detroit for two years after moving to be closer to his wife, whom he met at a journalism conference. Then, after meeting and befriending Paly journalism adviser Brian Wilson, Satterthwaite came to Paly, where he has served as a journalism adviser for the last eight years.

Before becoming an adviser, Satterthwaite said he did not have any journalism training. However, while in Woodstock, the English department chair asked if Satterthwaite would be willing to advise a new literary magazine, to which he responded affirmatively.

“When I was applying for the job in Michigan, right before school started, the previous … yearbook and newspaper advisor retired, … so the principal called me and he’s like, ‘Your job is now newspaper,’” Satterthwaite said.

From then on, Satterthwaite served as an English teacher, a journalism adviser or both — a career he said fulfills him and makes him enjoy going to work every day. 

“What I love about teaching is I get to work with young people who I find I get a lot of energy from,” Satterthwaite said. “I like the idea of just helping [to] be an advocate for people, young people, who often don’t get a voice. And journalism is that place where they can find that voice.”