We have chosen to do this project by highlighting members of our VLUS community as a way to celebrate them. We aim to accomplish this goal by learning about what connects us all, while showing our community that we should not judge a book by its cover, because there is more to each of us than what our appearance presents. We hope that by getting to know the people in our school, we can achieve a deeper understanding of our VLUS community, and a stronger sense of connection.
Celebrating each other is another way we all become better versions of ourselves.
Meet Ms. Terri Bowman
Ms. Bowman is our VLUS Health teacher. She was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Her favorite classes at school were Health, Social Studies, and Art. Math didn't come easy to her, but she had a wonderful math teacher, so for her it mattered a lot who the teacher was.
She has an Undergraduate Degree in History, Psychology, and Fine Arts, and a Master Degree in Health Education.
Overall, her biggest struggle has been dealing with anxiety, which she has had her whole life with different peaks here and there. She is learning different strategies to help her cope, and learning what hurts her and what helps her.
Since returning from maternity leave, she has been trying not to sweat the small stuff. One of the goals she has set for herself is trying to be more present in the moment.
She gets between 7 and a half and 8 hours of sleep.
A life experience that impacted her was working with a student with Cerebral Palsy in her early 20. He had severe physical and cognitive disabilities and at 13 he was experiencing puberty and asking questions about his body at school. No one was willing to teach him about the changes happening in his body, so he is the reason she went back to school to get her degree in Health Education and become a Health teacher.
Ms. Bowman strongly believes that all people have the right to learn about their own health regardless of their disability status.
Her favorite book is “My side of the mountain” by the author Jean Craighaed George. It’s about a boy living alone in the Catskill Mountains. She read it in fifth grade and it meant a lot to her because as a kid, being independent and free was important.
Some of her favorite artists are the Smiths and George Michael. She walked down the aisle at her wedding to an instrumental version of the song “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths.
She is proud of her two children and her work as a teacher. In her free time she likes to hang out with her kids, her husband, and their cat Lemmy, which they call Aya. They got Lemmy when her five year old, Jessy, was a baby. They used to read a book to Jessy called "Welcoming Elijah". In the book Elijah shows up as a cat, so her son thought Elijah meant cat, and since he could only say “aya” whenever he saw a cat, he’d say “Aya, Aya”
She has good days at school when her students are interested in what they are talking about in class and have a lot of questions. They may not necessarily get everything done on the agenda, but she has a good day if her students are excited to talk about what they’re learning.
Ms. Bowman wants to shout out to all the teachers and students that helped her transition back to school from her maternity leave. because it was difficult to transition back when you have been gone for months, and have a new baby. Teachers were really great, and her students were very positive.
Thank you Ms. Bowman for your dedication to our VLUS community!