Jonathan Briggs

Welcome to my portfolio site. My hope is that teachers reviewing this site will find some inspiration, expand their thinking about education, and most of all, feel encouraged to engage in conversations about teaching with me. While my current role has me teaching very little, it was an intense focus of mine for the first six years of my career. While I haven’t had as much classroom time in the last decade and my in-class performance is rustier than I would like, I have continued to think about the complexity that is schools, curriculum, and teaching students.

Half of my teaching experience happened in my first four years at the Bentley School in California where I taught 16 year-long sections and a one-term elective called Science Workshop. In the 17 years at EPS, I doubled that classroom experience while being the Director of Technology. At Bentley, I taught 9 distinct courses with an additional 15 at Eastside Prep (though three of those courses were very similar between the two schools). Because of this history, this portfolio is a mix of current practices and reflections on early learning in the craft of teaching.

Diving into those early experiences has been a fun, and time-consuming, experience. It has brought some pride in how my early intuition was born out by modern approaches to education and it has brought some sadness in some of the ways that I was more effective as a teacher when I was in the classroom full time. What has been most interesting is how much of my fondness revolves around little unplanned moments. When talking to past students, some of whom are 40!, their memories are also of those moments. They forget the beautiful way that I figured out how to teach momentum and collisions but remember when I said whoosie-whatsit-majigger when I couldn’t think of the name of a device. I had forgotten about that moment, but a former student uses that phrase still.

…also calling… something… a “whoosie whatsit majigger”. It’s been almost 20 years and I still use that phrase

Funny moments you remember – Bentley Student, Class of 2004

That isn’t to say that the content wasn’t important. Those same students went into college and beyond confident in their Physics knowledge whether they continued in the subject or not. You must get that part right too, that is the job. The lasting moments however will come from the small things when you least expect them. Sometimes a moment, that you forget as a teacher, was pivotal for a student. Sometimes a moment that you are sure impacted a student’s life is forgotten. What we remember and where we find meaning is difficult to predict.

There is a lot of evidence linked throughout the writing on this site. You can find the full list on the evidence tab. With the exception of my lovely PDP team (Maz, Sarah, Bess, Michael and Bart) I don’t anticipate anyone reading through this whole site. Instead, I hope that a few people, maybe some resident teachers, perhaps some future faculty doing their PDP, click around and get some ideas for their own practice. Consider this site an open invitation to come talk with me about teaching.

As a child, I wanted to be an inventor and to understand how everything worked (not just machines but also systems and people). Through teaching, I found that what really gives me joy is engaging and empowering others. For that I am grateful and I feel lucky to have had circumstances pull me into a career that I never considered until a couple of months before graduating college.

Bio from the Bentley Magazine (2003)

EPS 2022-23 Web Bio is also copied below

Director of Strategy, Technology & Innovation

Also: Teacher of Science, Tech, Math and Evolution of Society
B.A., Physics, Williams College

Jonathan joined Eastside Prep in 2005 as the school’s first Director of Technology. Jonathan spends a great deal of time keeping the school up to date with the latest technological changes, which has been no small endeavor over the past fourteen years. In addition to his teaching duties and independent study programs, Jonathan has implemented a laptop program in the Middle School, brought admissions and development databases online, and written programs for the school that manage data around students and teaching. He has overseen the technological needs of transitioning from ninety users to over 550 and from 12,000 to 113,000 square feet.  Jonathan may be proudest of starting TEDxEastsidePrep, an annual conference that seeks to explore new ideas in education by bringing in speakers from outside the field of instruction. Prior to joining EPS, Jonathan spent four years teaching math and physics, chairing the upper school science department, and coaching volleyball and golf at the Bentley School in California.

“The agility and curiosity of the faculty around improving their craft is inspiring. They tackle new ideas with ease and use tried and true methods when those make the most sense.”