About Me
I’m a 33-year-old 4th grade teacher at The Park School in Brookline, MA. I’m in charge of recycling at Park with much help from the students and other teachers in our grade. I grew up on a small farm in Hopkinton, NH where I spent much of my time climbing trees, riding horses, playing in the barn, or skiing at Pats Peak. After Bowdoin College and five summers working on a ranch in Montana, I found my way to Bank Street College of Education (where I wrote my Master’s thesis designing a recycling program that can be downloaded on this site) and then The Park School where I’m going into my seventh year as a homeroom teacher.
I’m concerned about the environment (deforestation, needed water and land conservation, exploding extinction rates and the loss of biodiversity, pollution leading to human made global climate change, etc.) and am committed to doing what I can to help. I want help teachers understand more about our role in shaping the next generation in a way that addresses these problems. We teachers need to redefine “citizenship” to include taking care of our community by protecting our natural world. This is a broader definition of “citizenship” than currently used in most schools. I search for and flesh out hands-on environmental projects for kids to take part in to help nature and to know they can make a real difference in the world. Projects like this Catalog Canceling Challenge empower children and allow them to be part of the answer. This is satisfying and comforting to them.
I’m new to making websites (this is my first), but have been making internet videos for several years. All of my videos can be found on YouTube at www.TedWells.tv. I helped organize and film Step It Up Boston in April of 2007, will do some www.350.org work, and do occasional video work for the Boston Climate Action Network. But most of the time I teach math, language arts, and social studies (where we study Ancient Greece) with 9- and 10-year-olds. Teaching is what I love most.
I find inspiration from Al Gore, Bill McKibben, and David Orr, and from relatives going back three generations working to help the environment. I constantly draw on the technological know-how, green wisdom, and good spelling of my wife, Anna Wells. Our dog Penny is my closest connection to nature and one of my best friends!
Most of all, I stay up late tinkering with videos, lesson plans, and this website for my students, and for all children, as they will be inheriting this warming world from us. I want to do my small part protect it for them. I’m especially driven to help the environment for Coley, my six-week-old son.
If you have any questions for me, email tedwellscatablog@gmail.com, and thanks for considering this project.
- Ted Wells, Jamaica Plain, MA