Why I Teach: Paige Parry

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s a freshman in high school, Paige Parry knew exactly what she wanted to do: research. She also knew exactly what she didn’t want to do: teach. “I had absolutely no interest in teaching,” she recalls.

And with that goal firmly entrenched in her 13-year-old mind, Parry’s ambition and hard work during high school resulted in multiple scholarship offers from big-name, research-based institutions.

Instead, she chose George Fox.

“It was quite clear to me that George Fox was going to offer the academic training and stronger research experiences than other places,” she says. “To pair that with really growing my academic abilities from a faith-based perspective, it seemed like all those things that were most important to me were going to be offered there.”

Two years later, Parry had sped through her bachelor’s degree in biology at George Fox and enrolled in the ecology PhD program at the University of Wyoming, opting to skip pursuing a master’s degree altogether. It was an unorthodox approach, but she managed to convince her PhD advisor she was prepared and determined despite being, at just 20 years old, by far the youngest candidate in the program.

Research still her goal, Parry was intent on eventually landing a position at an R1 institution. “At R1 institutions, research is the highest emphasis and it’s very competitive, which means that teaching can be kind of an afterthought,” she says.

In other words, teaching was simply a means to an end – a way to strengthen her resume for future academic positions. “I want to do academic research, so I guess I’ll have to teach a little,” she thought.

Then Parry taught her first class.

“It was really rewarding to interact with students and actually see them learn something,” she says. “I found that was something that meant a lot to me. . . . I have this passion for generating knowledge [through research], but it’s so much less exciting when it’s knowledge that you just keep to yourself. Having the opportunity to then disseminate that knowledge and see students not only learn and understand it but, in some cases, get excited about it and care for it, was this really exciting process.”

Throughout the rest of her doctoral studies, Parry had opportunities to teach in both undergraduate classrooms and K-12 programs, and her perspective on teaching began to change. She also was discovering a creative side she particularly enjoyed.

“A lot of the fun for me was in thinking creatively about how I could write my lessons and teach my students the material,” she says. “I really enjoy applying creativity to the process rather than using a standard lecture approach. What specific things can I do? What activities, what metaphors can I use, what diagrams can I come up with that are really going to help students understand this material in a new way?”