Jamie Lammers, Nederland. When the 2019-2020 school year commences, Nederland Middle-Senior High School will be welcoming a new teacher, Ms. Mariah Colton, to the faculty family. Ms. Colton has been working incredibly hard on her way to becoming a chemistry and physical science teacher at the school. She spent a year in a teaching program through Western State University in Gunnison, studying biochemistry and ecology at Montana State (earning herself two degrees), and taught molecular biology labs at Western Washington University. She eventually made her way back to her hometown of Nederland and started student-teaching at the middle-high school, helping SRS (science research symposium) students with statistical analysis of their self-research studies and physical science students with any questions they have about the subject.

Ms. Colton talked about her preferred teaching style in an interview conducted at the Nederland Middle-Senior High School library, carrying her baby boy Levi with her to keep an eye on him since she couldn’t find a babysitter. She loves “to make connections between physical science, life science, and environmental sciences” and believes that is where her primary teaching strength lies. She’s had a lot of time and practice implementing these connections into her teaching. Speaking of her time student-teaching, she said, “I took two semesters worth of classes online through Western Colorado University while doing my student teaching, so I got to practice the things that I was learning in the online classes through my teaching constantly. Sometimes it felt like an experiment implementing the lessons from the classes into my teaching, but sometimes it really clicked and I [now] know I’m going to use those strategies next year in teaching.” She spoke highly of Nederland in the interview, saying how during the times she acted as a substitute teacher for the school, “the positive culture of this school stood out against any other school that I subbed at in Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley, and I knew I wanted to come back.”†

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Ms. Colton will be replacing Mr. Matthew “G.” Grigaitis, who is retiring this year after 30 years of teaching and around 25 years as a science and math teacher at Nederland Middle-Senior High. Colton said of G. that “he is an extremely experienced teacher and I have been so lucky to work with him throughout this entire school year. I’ve learned a lot by watching his teaching styles, following his examples, and discussing how things go after classes are over, so he’s given me a lot of knowledge and practical skills going forward.” She added that in terms of advice he had given her, the biggest thing she took away from his teaching was to “plan ahead and stay on top of things.” The students may miss Mr. G. once he’s gone, but his legacy at Nederland will continue to live on in the teachings of Ms. Colton.

(Originally published in the May 30, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)