Notre Dame middle-school teacher finds her niche in working with 6th, 7th and 8th graders.
Notre Dame middle division teacher Amanda Knapp is with her husband, Ryan, and their two children, Libby and Colin, on a recent trip to Walt Disney World.
“At the time, I was coaching a 5th- and 6th-grade cheer team at St. Lawrence Catholic School in Utica, Mich., and felt a real pull toward teaching,” said Knapp. “I also worked for the Sterling Heights Parks and Recreation Department summer playground program around the same time and was drawn to working with children even more.”
So before she even started year-two of college, Knapp dropped her psychology major and went into elementary education. “I think it was when I started going into classrooms for field assignments that it really, really hit me that I was making the right decision.”
Found a home
As she got close to graduating from Oakland, Knapp initially thought she wanted to teach lower elementary, but as she completed field assignments in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms, she quickly learned that that might not necessarily be the right fit for her.
“When I had an opportunity to student-teach in a middle school, I finally found my niche,” Knapp said. “I love teaching students in grades 6-8! There is so much going on with these kids — the mental, physical and emotional changes — which challenge me as a professional on a daily basis, and they always keep me on my toes.”
Knapp actually started her full-time teaching career at St. Lawrence, where she spent seven years. But in the fall of 2012, she walked into her high-school alma mater at 1300 Giddings Road to teach in the middle division and she hasn’t looked back.
Well, maybe a little. . .
“Because I went to high school at Notre Dame, I already knew a lot about the building, the classes offered, and even some of the staff,” she said. “However, this was not the same school that I attended 16 years ago. (Wow, that seems so long ago!) When I was in high school, Notre Dame was a good school, but it was still in the early stages. As students and staff back then, we were focused on building the right culture and a good reputation among a field of very high-profile schools in the area.”
In 2012, when she got the teaching job at Notre Dame Marist Academy, Knapp immediately found out that the change of culture that everyone had been working so hard to achieve when she was a student had been firmly established and normalized.
“One aspect of this established culture here is that the faculty and staff — really, ALL aspects of the school — are so welcoming,” she said. “To me, this ideal is difficult to put into words, but it is something of a felt presence. I was, and continue to be, drawn to the culture that is Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy. I was drawn to the staff that inspired me to be the teacher that I never knew I could be, and I wanted to grow and learn — and to be an IB (International Baccalaureate) learner as I educate my students.”
‘Even more changes’
Knapp said since she’s been on staff at Notre Dame, there have been even bigger changes to the Notre Dame community.
“The most significant difference since I started teaching at NDPMA is the growth of the IB program, especially in the middle division,” she said. “For most of our faculty members, the IB mindset now is a regular and normal part of our everyday classroom culture.
“I have also witnessed the further development of the educating-the-whole-child concept. Helping our students to grow as Christian people and teaching them the Marist values as well as the Habits of the Heart are critical as they continue on through NDPMA.”
Knapp points out that besides the obvious — teaching subjects to the students — the most important part of her job at Notre Dame is ‘connecting’ and creating strong relationships with students and colleagues.
She said as those strong relationships grow, she’s better able to model and show the community how to live out the Marist mission.
“While it’s important that the kids learn how to dissect a book or formulate an essay — I am a language and literature teacher, after all,” she said, “it’s even more important that they know what it means to be a Christian person, an upright citizen and an academic scholar, with an emphasis on being a Christian person first and foremost. I try to model that mission every day in my classroom, and I hope that my students see that in me as well.”
Asked what she might be if she was not a teacher (or a psychologist), this married mother of two said it’s kind of hard to even think about doing something other than what she loves so much.
“I sometimes wonder what other careers would fit me if I wasn’t a teacher, and truthfully I can never seem to figure it out,” she said. “I have juggled the idea of being a fitness instructor with a focus on yoga, barre and pilates. Also, I have thought about working for a nonprofit organization, visiting schools and educating children in some way, though I don’t really know if that is even a job! Truth is, though, that I am so right at home in the middle-school classroom here at Notre Dame, why move do anything else!”
Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org.
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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." The Marist Fathers and Brothers sponsor NDPMA's Catholic identity and manages its educational program. Notre Dame is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.