Faculty Focus: Andy Arick

A. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up but was inspired by my English teachers in high school and college. I had a knack for reading and writing, so I studied English in college and went to graduate school for it. Working as a graduate teaching assistant, I realized that I enjoyed teaching and wanted to work with high schoolers. I had been a summer camp counselor for several years working with teenagers, so those experiences dovetailed as I pursued a career as a high school teacher. 

A. Nothing worth learning is boring. If a subject seems inaccessible or pointless to students at first, it is my job to make it relevant and interesting. Sometimes that process requires patience (especially if you're asking students to wrestle with Shakespeare or learn to tie some seemingly random knot in Outdoor Leadership), but if I am doing my job well, we get to a place where students are engaged because they see the purpose of new knowledge or a new skill that they’ve learned.

A. The girls here are motivated to learn and try new things. My role now is especially rewarding because in a single day I can be guiding students through the discussion of a complex novel in the morning and then showing them how to build a climbing anchor at Sunset Rock in the afternoon. We offer the girls a variety of ways to take on challenges and learn from new experiences, and I love the role I get to play in that.

A. Head of School Megan Cover and I discussed my interest in growing our outdoor program a few years back, and she has been incredibly supportive of that vision ever since. Meaningful outdoor programming is a part of GPS’s history, and given our location and the outdoor recreational opportunities in Chattanooga, it makes sense that we would work to revitalize it. We now call the program Girls Outdoor Leadership Education (GOLE) because we want authentic leadership opportunities to be at the core of the experiences for the girls. Now, a couple of years in, we are starting to get a solid group of student leaders who are gaining enough experience to lead younger girls in the basics of outdoor skills and adventure. Watching that growth is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.

A. My time at GPS has been incredibly fulfilling. Over the past six years, the education landscape has changed tremendously with the pandemic as well as the newfound accessibility of A.I. There are a lot of challenges to address and opportunities to embrace for educators right now, and GPS does a fantastic job to encourage faculty to think outside the box and to refine our skills for teaching the next generation of girls. What I love about my role in outdoor education, though, is that as much as the technological world changes, there is something about getting outside and enjoying nature that cannot be displaced by artificial experiences. I look forward to continuing to build a program that allows young women to discover that while also giving them authentic opportunities to lead each other in the process.