Travis Hawkley, MA
Education Coach
As a child, I loved reading and gathering as much knowledge as possible. Coupled with being an extrovert and loving to explain things to people, I decided at 14 that I wanted to be a teacher. After high school, I taught English at a kindergarten in Russia, then to adults in Spain. Following that I completed my BA in Linguistics and MA in Second Language Teaching. For most of my educational career I taught ESL and Spanish at a college level. A job at a career college in Arizona, teaching a professional development course, helping students prepare for rigorous accelerated programs, I keyed in to what I love most about being a teacher: seeing students succeed where they didn't think they could. I'm excited to keep doing that now at Gemba with the students here.
Outside of work I still love to read voraciously, run, make art, cook, and play games with my family. My favorite books include The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, with other favorite authors in Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Steve Berry, Neil Gaiman, and Ernest Cline.