About Mr. Knowles
This will be my 15th year teaching for Whitehall District Schools and 3rd year teaching 4th grade. But, I come equipped with ten years of experience teaching 5th grade, and I have also taught 6th grade math & science and middle school technology classes. I became a teacher in a “non-traditional” way. Before my teaching career, I worked in the field of wildlife biology and studied desert tortoises in the Mojave Desert of the southwestern United States. After graduating from Grand Valley State University with a degree in biology, I started my short-lived ecologist career on a volunteer basis in 1997, and volunteered for two years. Afterward, I was hired to continue conducting research about desert tortoises and other Mojave inhabitants. In the fall of 2000 I decided to become involved in K-12 education, and focused my attention on elementary education. I returned to Michigan and enrolled at GVSU to acquire my teaching degree and certificate. After completing the teacher certification program in the summer of 2002 I was hired by Whitehall, and I have been here ever since.
Outside from teaching, I earned a Masters Degree in Elementary Education during the Spring of 2009. I continue to create new goals and opportunities for myself. Some of the most incredible opportunities of my life happened during the past several summers, where I have had the opportunity to volunteer as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service for eight summers, and was stationed at The Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Curecanti, and Grand Teton National Parks. All have been experiences of a lifetime! The work was a lot of fun, and in my free time I got to climb several high mountain peaks, backpack sections of the Continental Divide Trail, and explore the rugged wilderness of the west. I try to share my experiences with my students, because I want them to know that you can achieve your life’s ambitions if you set your mind to it. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. |