Christine’s initial career choice started as a veterinary technologist where she worked in various clinics and zoos around the world. But, it is while working in the education department of an oceanarium on the Sunshine Coast in Australia that she came to realize her love of teaching children.
This motivated her to return to university and become a teacher. Christine completed a bachelor of arts degree in psychology at Queens University in Canada and obtained a post-graduate certificate in education from Sunderland University in the UK.
She has taught mainly grade one in International schools in Laos, Tunisia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Turkey. Christine has come to define four core principles that direct her way of teaching and interacting with students and parents: ‘it is my responsibility to impact my students’ lives in positive and meaningful ways; it is crucial to respect and appreciate every child’s unique learning styles and personality; it is my duty to establish a classroom community where all students feel valued and are able to safely express themselves in their own unique ways’; and finally, ‘learning is a partnership’.
Christine also manages to express her creative side through fractal art, photography and poetry. Her husband Michel, a retired international math teacher, is accompanying her to Krakow, along with their three cats – Bob, Marley and Calvin.