Friday Feature: Ms. Kim Buice, Upper School humanities teacher

Ms. Kim Buice, Upper School humanities teacher, has been a part of the Rabun Gap faculty for the past two years. She grew up in Georgia and attended the University of Georgia where she earned a bachelor of science in English Education.

Ms. Buice has experience working internationally — she taught English in Laos after graduating from college. At Rabun Gap, she teaches sophomore English and Advanced Placement English Literature & Composition for seniors. In addition to her teaching duties, she coaches soccer and has an active presence in the dorms with our boarding students.

 

The uniqueness of the student body is what drew me to Rabun Gap initially. The diversity present on this campus - in terms of nationality and socioeconomic background - is unlike any that I have encountered at other private schools.

 

What is your teaching philosophy?  

This is a difficult question to answer concisely and in a way that doesn’t sound cliche. I believe that successful teaching enables students to engage actively in their own education; this goes beyond teaching them how to actively listen during lectures (though that is certainly a necessary skill needed in college). The job of a teacher is not only to convey knowledge to students, but also to inspire critical thinking, to teach how to ask meaningful questions and why doing so matters, and to instill in students an understanding that failure and struggle is a vital stage of the learning process. I think too often in education, students and teachers alike are pressured to focus solely on test scores as a measure of success, but if we can encourage students to understand the ways in which they learn and the methods by which they are most successful in expressing the knowledge they have gained, that is when we have more adequately prepared them to function well in the world.

 

What were you doing before coming to Rabun Gap?
Before I came to Rabun Gap, I was working abroad on a Fulbright Grant. I was teaching at a teacher training college in Savannakhet, Laos, working with Lao faculty to teach future English teachers. I was teaching both English language and teaching methodology, while supposedly being an apt cultural ambassador for the United States. While at times I think I succeeded in that endeavor, there were other times- such as when I found myself teaching my students the “Cotton-Eyed Joe” dance in response to a request to learn an “American dance”- when I realized how impossible a task it is to attempt to represent a country as vastly diverse as the U.S. It was a learning experience of epic proportions and has inspired who I am as a person and teacher now.

 

I love to read. I enjoy being outside, hiking or kayaking. I am currently in the process of trying to make myself enjoy running, but the cold weather hasn’t helped that endeavor.

 

While I’d like to say that I’m known for my engaging teaching methods and student-centered classrooms, I think many of my students’ first responses would concern the cupcakes and muffins that I bake for them on occasion.

What makes Rabun Gap special?
I teach AP Literature to seniors here. In each section of this class, there are at least five countries represented by my students. There are students from near and far in the United States. Among all of them, there is a wide span of political beliefs and personal ideologies. Despite that, we are able to delve into highly sensitive topics regarding race, gender, violence, colonialism, patriotism, and more. While some of these conversations get heated and rarely are they completely comfortable, I regularly sit in the middle of a room full of teenagers who are engaging in respectful dialogue about potentially incendiary topics- conversations that I rarely see playing out respectfully in the “real world.” That is what I love about Rabun Gap. This is a community that empowers teachers to ask difficult questions to classrooms of students who are learning to answer them.