Amy Keys stands enveloped by the humid heat of Indonesia, where street markets line the roads and common folk wash their clothes in rivers. It is 1990, and when classes resume later in the afternoon, she will teach English to Javanese students intent on learning the language in order to qualify for higher-level education.
Ten years later, on the Asian mainland, Sariah Tolley gazes over a farming village. A woman carrying her child on her back plows a field in a rural landscape dotted with clay huts. Tolley, a college student teaching English in Kunming, capital of China’s Yunnan province, has just finished a long day at work.
Time and chance would bring these two traveled teachers together on Aug. 22, their first day of teaching at Saratoga High. After years spent teaching students from across the globe, Keys and Tolley both felt eager to apply the knowledge gained from their experiences to the challenges that lay ahead.
“I’m struck by how friendly and welcoming both students and staff are, how cooperative and helpful to each other and to new teachers!” Keys said. “The students are thoughtful and creative and mature.”
Tolley agrees that the nurturing environment at the school helps foster student learning.
“This is a school that truly invests in and shows great concern for its students. I am here because I want to continue the tradition of excellence that embodies the school,” Tolley said.
In 2000, Tolley journeyed to China where she taught English at a boarding school for sixth months. Some of her students were already in their senior year; others were in kindergarten.
“One of my big objectives while I was there was to involve the kids in activities and games,” Tolley said. “I remember one of their favorite ones was to dart up to the board, and they would have to write or identify a word. They loved it.”
Starting in 2008, Tolley also taught for three years at the Downtown College Prep, a high school for impoverished, mostly Latino students trying to get into college. There, she learned about dealing with students who struggled “emotionally, academically or socially,” she said.
Like Tolley, Keys began her career as a teacher outside of the United States. She first picked up teaching in Indonesia in 1990, where she stayed for two years. At the time, she did not suspect how much she would love the experience nor the impact it would have on the rest of her career.
“The first class I ever taught, I walked in and I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and I really underestimated how much it takes [to teach a class],” she said.
She taught English to children and adults from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., with a midday break that spanned the day’s warmest hours.
After moving back to Wisconsin, where she came from, Keys continued to teach from 1995 to 2007, this time at a diverse high school with students from countries such as Laos, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Mexico.
Both of these experiences contrasted with her recent involvement as a mentor with the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project.
“I got to have more sense of what school is like for students, since instead of being up in front of the class, I was sitting at the back,” Keys said. She gained a sense of how students respond “when the teacher is disorganized, or stressed, or doesn’t use any visuals, or uses the same teaching method all the time.”
Like Keys, Tolley feels like she has benefited from her adventurous endeavors.
“I feel like it’s unique in that I’ve taught students from so many different backgrounds,” Tolley said. “Something I really try to do is meet the needs of my students where they’re at right now.”
