Hannah Blacksin—Teaching Staff

“Everything changes, nothing is lost”
—Ovid, Heraclitus, Siddhartha Gautama, Dirty Projectors

Hannah (she/they) is in her 4th year as part of the collaborative staff at PSCS. She is a certified secondary ELA teacher and holds an M.Sc. in Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education from the University of Edinburgh, a B.A. in English from Lewis and Clark College and an M.Ed from the UW. She seeks to decolonize English and science education through responsive curriculum, centering student choice and experiential learning. She believes in the deep power of being in just relationship – with ourselves, each other, and the planet – and seeks to facilitate spaces that empower these relationships to emerge.

Prior to teaching in classrooms, Hannah worked itinerantly as an outdoor and experiential educator for 5 years. These experiences ranged from facilitating culturally responsive discussions on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia to leading field study groups in coastal Maine. Hannah feels immense gratitude to work in a community that empowers her to teach what she loves – literature and poetry, social and environmental justice, cephalopod stuff, philosophical ideas, play and movement, and truly anything that gets students outside and into the world.

Hannah was born in Western Massachusetts, where she grew up studying her compost pile, reading in hammocks, and playing a lot of soccer. In this chapter of her life, Hannah is interested in fostering intentional community and generally kicking it with her chosen family. You can often find her bikepacking with her people or dancing wildly in an open space. Her goal for this year is to get more kids on more bikes more often.

If Hannah could choose one person she would like to have a long meal with, alive or dead it would be Ursula K. Le Guin.