Educating Children in Faith,
Academics, and Service
I earned my Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Binghamton University. While I majored in Political Science, I minored in Spanish, and can speak the language proficiently. After graduating Binghamton University, I worked on Wall St. for both the Bank of New York and for J.P. Morgan Chase. I worked in the banking divisions there for ten years, developing important life skills and flourishing professionally. At the same time, I began mentoring high school students through my local parish, and soon realized that teaching could be my true calling in life.
Therefore, I returned to school at night to obtain my Masters of Science degree in Social Studies Education from Queens College. I am currently certified to teach middle and high school Social Studies, and I have my Religious Certificate to teach Religion in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
How did the Mayan civilization practice their religion? How did the Mayan people organize their cities? How did the Mayan people use their system of glyph writing? How did the Mayan people practice mathematics? Why did the Mayan people practice arts and crafts? How did their system of agriculture demonstrate their ability to adapt to their environment? These questions and more to be answered in this unit on Mesoamerican civilizations!
Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island and an important American religious leader, arrives in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England. Williams, a Puritan, worked as a teacher before serving briefly as a colorful pastor at Plymouth and then at Salem. Within a few years of his arrival, he alarmed the Puritan oligarchy of Massachusetts by speaking out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. In October 1635, he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court.
After leaving Massachusetts, Williams, with the assistance of the Narragansett tribe, established a settlement at the junction of two rivers near Narragansett Bay, located in present-day Rhode Island. He declared the settlement open to all those seeking freedom of conscience and the removal of the church from civil matters, and many dissatisfied Puritans came. Taking the success of the venture as a sign from God, Williams named the community “Providence.”