Hannah Reyes

About Hannah

Hannah Reyes holds a B.A. in Education from Michigan State University, and a M.S. in Environmental Studies from Antioch University, New England. She taught life science courses in mid-Michigan and served as department chair before joining the Interlochen Arts Academy faculty as an Instructor of Biology and Ecology.

A Third Culture Kid (TCK)—born in England and raised in parts of Western & Sub-Saharan Africa—she calls many places home, including northern Michigan, where she now lives with her husband and daughter.

Her contribution to the world comes from a deep rooted desire to see restoration; a reconciliation towards the place where all things have the ability to flourish. “Can all things flourish to their full capacity?” is one of the first-order questions in Reyes's life. It is what drove her to examine ecosystems, social systems, and nested systems. It is why she intentionally chose her career as a science teacher.

Student citizenship is the product of good teaching, not training. There exist educational systems that seek only to train. Teaching, as opposed to training, is the craft that develops not just student’s workplace skills, but expands their perspective and their consciousness of themselves. This awakening in young people is a form of freedom and empowers them to affect change with more substantive responsibility. I aspire to be a teacher, the type of change agent that helps students envision a world where many worlds are possible, by disrupting the predictive values and expectations we place on people. The process of moving from trainer to teacher is the craft I continue to hone, the purpose of which is to make education the practice of freedom.