In her second year at Oxford and 27th year of teaching, educator, advisor, and coordinator Dr. Elizabeth Hind was named the 2023-2024 Oxford Teacher of the Year, voted by Oxford faculty, and honored as one of the three AUHSD Teachers of the Year.
The award honors one teacher’s unique impact on the student body and faculty throughout the year. Being awarded to Dr. Hind, a relatively fresh Oxford face, the honor reflects the proactive changes and improvements she has brought to the school within a short time period.
“We were really excited to have her join our English department, and from the moment she stepped foot on campus, she just took off,” said fellow Oxford English teacher Ms. Van Beusekom. “She is always very measured and professional and polite and very inclusive, so overall, I feel like she has a lot to contribute to our staff and we’re very happy to have her here.”
Not only a dynamic force amongst faculty, Dr. Hind’s work as Oxford’s Work-based Learning Coordinator has opened doors to accessible and practical career development for the entire student body. In collaboration with AUHSD’s AIME program, Dr. Hind coordinates diverse career exploration opportunities across high school grade levels. From web design programs, to sales pitch competitions, to healthcare internships, Dr. Hind provides students with hands-on opportunities to learn valuable career skills and gain real work experience.
“I’m really grateful to have her because of all the opportunities that she’s given. My most recent one was a leadership conference where we got to meet a lot of people and work on our communicating skills,” said sophomore Trina So, a student in Dr. Hind’s English 1H class last year.
“We were really excited to have her join our English department, and from the moment she stepped foot on campus, she just took off.”
– Mrs. Van Beusekom
In her work as an English teacher, Dr. Hind adapts art-based research methodologies for use in the classroom. Known in academia as “scholartistry,” this approach to pedagogy incorporates arts in traditional academic work. Dr. Hind encourages students to use art as a medium for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data, and her students express their ideas creatively, whether it’s through publishing their literary analysis essays on websites teeming with visuals or creating symbolism-packed chalk art.
“I think the most impactful part of her curriculum is her scholartistry projects,” Theodore Vang, a sophomore in Dr. Hind’s English 2H class, said. “It really enhanced my understanding of whatever material we’re covering, and […] it was an interesting and unique style of learning English that I hadn’t seen before.”
With her unique artistic talents, Dr. Hind values creative expression through her favorite pastimes outside of school: nature and photography. Pictures of her travels ornament her classroom walls, and her vibrant vignettes of eastern California have been framed in numerous art shows and fine art galleries.
In school and in life, Dr. Hind emphasizes the importance of exploring new challenges and pushing oneself in both a holistic and professional context.
“My mantras are ‘go big or go home’ and ‘why not?’” Dr. Hind said. “Go full-send on life. It’s good to challenge yourself. Don’t be afraid to try out new things — it keeps you fresh and keeps burn-out at bay. If you try something new and it works, that’s awesome! If it doesn’t work, fail spectacularly at it, then figure out what went wrong, change it up, and try again.”
Dr. Hind firmly believes her students are at the core of all she does.
“The students 100% are what get me here each day. I enjoy hearing what they have to say, hearing their takes on what we read and what we write,” Dr. Hind said. “It makes this job really fun — to get to work with students who are so involved in what we are doing.”
Dr. Hind values building professional relationships with students and making the curriculum meaningful. “I want to be able to speak to who that student is, not just as a student, but as a person.”
