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| D for Davis + S for Seley = DSBCS |
The 2019-2020 school year is our sixteenth year as teaching partners. We teach a multi-age loop in which your child has us for a two-year cycle. We teach math in single grade levels (Mrs. Davis teaches 3rd grade math, Mr. Seley teaches 4th grade math) and for all other subjects we teach our homerooms of both 3rd and 4th graders. We partner our classes daily for recess, class meetings, and projects, so your child will spend time with us both. Also, we believe in flexible grouping and differentiating, so sometimes your child may meet with their non-homeroom teacher for a small group lesson (for example, word study).
We are passionate about teaching. We are committed to helping your child to grow academically, socially, and, above all, to love school by connecting with our students and designing an innovative approach to learning. We create powerful, rigorous lessons with high expectations and high engagement for all our kids, and we are constantly critiquing ourselves to improve our instruction and practice. We challenge each other to become better teachers every day.
We are nurturing, calm, serious, funny, joyful, structured, ethical, studious, and creative. We are imperfect and make mistakes, yet always have at heart what is best for your child in the long run. We believe that clear, explicit teaching and routine procedures and systems help kids to build good character and independence. We rely on meaningful classroom jobs for all students to promote citizenship and teamwork. We believe that offering student choice in learning tasks promotes growth of executive function skills as well as fosters student ownership of learning.
We are dedicated to partnering with parents and strive to support them in their child's educational journey and daily life outside of school. Frequent communication via email and phone conferences is preferable to us.
We want all of our students to absolutely love coming to school and to be happy every day as we mentor each child to be their best self. They are the reason for everything we do. Every decision we make aims to do what is best for kids.
From the time I was a little girl lining up my Cabbage Patch Dolls on my floor to play school, I knew I wanted to be an elementary teacher. I grew up in Novi with two younger brothers and a pet cat. When I was 13, I took a babysitting course at a local hospital and began babysitting the kids in my neighborhood. In sixth grade, I began taking Spanish classes and was enamored with the language and cultures.
I attended Western Michigan University, majoring in Spanish and elementary education, minoring in math and science. For four months, I studied abroad at La Universidad de Burgos in Spain. During college, I visited Kalamazoo Public School classrooms every semester through my courses, and also was a substitute teacher in the county. One fall, a principal called me to long-term sub as a part-time ESL tutor to two elementary students, a brother and a sister, who had just moved from Mexico to a small farming community in our area and spoke no English. I taught them a few times a week regularly for a year, and they grew to have fluency enough to enable them to connect with others and with their schoolwork. Other favorite summer jobs I had before becoming a certified teacher were daycare caregiver and summer camp counselor.
Immediately following college, I began at BCS in 2002 as a Spanish teacher. In 2004, I began teaching in a 3/4 classroom with Tom Seley as my partner teacher. By 2010, I had finished my master's work in Special Education, earning an endorsement in Learning Disabilities, at Oakland University after doing a summertime practicum.
At home, I am married to Gary, a mechanical engineer who designs, builds, and tests tanks. Together we have an 11-year-old named Isaac, a 8-year-old named Hannah, a 5-year-old named Jonah, and a geriatric 15-year-old beagle-basset named Frodo. My family loves camping along Lake Michigan in our travel trailer, hiking, riding bikes, going to the zoo, doing home improvement projects, playing board games, and just enjoying the fun that is having a young family. My hobbies are reading, cooking, gardening, yoga, and taking long walks.
At school, I am passionate about project-based learning, meaningful technology integration, inquiry, hands-on STEM, mindfulness, playing board games as a social-emotional tool to build collaboration, and, above all, doing our work every day with genuine engagement, creating a tangible climate of joy.
We are passionate about teaching. We are committed to helping your child to grow academically, socially, and, above all, to love school by connecting with our students and designing an innovative approach to learning. We create powerful, rigorous lessons with high expectations and high engagement for all our kids, and we are constantly critiquing ourselves to improve our instruction and practice. We challenge each other to become better teachers every day.
We are nurturing, calm, serious, funny, joyful, structured, ethical, studious, and creative. We are imperfect and make mistakes, yet always have at heart what is best for your child in the long run. We believe that clear, explicit teaching and routine procedures and systems help kids to build good character and independence. We rely on meaningful classroom jobs for all students to promote citizenship and teamwork. We believe that offering student choice in learning tasks promotes growth of executive function skills as well as fosters student ownership of learning.
We are dedicated to partnering with parents and strive to support them in their child's educational journey and daily life outside of school. Frequent communication via email and phone conferences is preferable to us.
We want all of our students to absolutely love coming to school and to be happy every day as we mentor each child to be their best self. They are the reason for everything we do. Every decision we make aims to do what is best for kids.
Tom Seley
Kim Davis
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| Mrs. Davis in 4th grade |
I attended Western Michigan University, majoring in Spanish and elementary education, minoring in math and science. For four months, I studied abroad at La Universidad de Burgos in Spain. During college, I visited Kalamazoo Public School classrooms every semester through my courses, and also was a substitute teacher in the county. One fall, a principal called me to long-term sub as a part-time ESL tutor to two elementary students, a brother and a sister, who had just moved from Mexico to a small farming community in our area and spoke no English. I taught them a few times a week regularly for a year, and they grew to have fluency enough to enable them to connect with others and with their schoolwork. Other favorite summer jobs I had before becoming a certified teacher were daycare caregiver and summer camp counselor.
Immediately following college, I began at BCS in 2002 as a Spanish teacher. In 2004, I began teaching in a 3/4 classroom with Tom Seley as my partner teacher. By 2010, I had finished my master's work in Special Education, earning an endorsement in Learning Disabilities, at Oakland University after doing a summertime practicum.
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| My dog loves to camp too! |
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| The Davis Family |
At school, I am passionate about project-based learning, meaningful technology integration, inquiry, hands-on STEM, mindfulness, playing board games as a social-emotional tool to build collaboration, and, above all, doing our work every day with genuine engagement, creating a tangible climate of joy.
