Our second “ACT Voices” video features Whitman College alumna and teacher residency graduate Elizabeth Thompson. Elizabeth explains that she was drawn to the ACT for her Master’s in Teaching and Oregon teacher license because the residency approach meant that she could be a teacher from the outset of her two years of graduate study. Working among a close cohort of teacher residents, Elizabeth describes the rigorous academic side of the ACT approach and how she explored the idea of teachers as perpetual students and inquirers.

During her two years at Arbor School, Elizabeth taught within one of our K/1st grade classrooms, extending her practice to 5th grade in her second year at Stafford Elementary in the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. She now teaches 4th/5th grade at the Cottonwood School of Civics and Science in Portland, Oregon.