About Me

Hi, I am Clay of Semper Sharkus.

I am entering my 26th year as a professional educator. I taught at Gregory Middle School for two years and when Scullen opened in 2001, I was selected to be part of the opening staff. I’ve been at Scullen ever since. I’ve taught every grade level and every CORE content, except math.

Before becoming a middle school teacher, I had a career in the restaurant industry. I lived and worked in Houston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Southern California, and the Chicagoland. What I enjoyed about the restaurant business was teaching my employees to be passionate about what they did to earn a living. It was a rewarding and challenging job, but not as rewarding as I have found teaching kids to be.

I earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Houston as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Northern Illinois University. I am a life-long learner who is always learning, always asking questions, and always looking for ways to connect the content area and help kids learn. Along the way I earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from Aurora University.

I’ve been working on developing this space – first as Wild-Eyed Teacher and now as Semper Sharkus- as  a teacher blog. It’s a space to write about the process of teaching and learning.

Also, I decided in October 2017 to use the blog to post my newsletters and I went back and added the September Newsletters for science and history, and then life happened and I stopped writing.

Look for updates and articles reflecting on the art of teaching 6th graders science and social studies.

Teaching kids is truly an art, and a pleasure. Most days.