In high school, Katie Hull loved her math and science classes.
She always enjoyed the challenge of solving a problem. Even if she couldn’t figure it out right away, she knew she could get to the solution.
As a teacher, she wants her students to embody that same confidence when they face a challenge.
“The overall skills of learning how to problem-solve, learning how to approach things step-by-step. That’s the main takeaway I hope they get from their classes in high school. That way they can do whatever they want post-graduation and know they can do it on their own,” says Hull.
More than anything else, Hull appreciates the close-knit and supportive community at Saint Ignatius College Prep.
“You can feel the love and encouragement from colleagues and students alike everyday,” she says. “We want to come to work and be there at games, dances and all those things. That’s something that’s really special about Saint Ignatius.”
Her message to students: Don’t spend time worrying about what other people think. Just do what feels right to you.
Raymond Lewis ‘13 graduated with a degree in engineering, but he soon realized something else was calling him. He always loved tutoring and mentoring his younger siblings, the seed of his ultimate professional path.
After graduating, he found a masters program called The Alliance for Catholic Education. Its mission is to serve underprivileged Catholic schools. As a student of the program, Lewis received an assignment to teach at one of those schools in Jacksonville, Florida, where he discovered his passion for teaching.
Once he got his masters in education, Saint Ignatius College Prep welcomed the alum back to campus - this time as a science teacher and a girls cross country coach.
Lewis appreciates that Saint Ignatius uses a constructivist approach with science concepts. He explains, “Instead of dumping all sorts of information on our students, we give them opportunities to explore, make observations, make conclusions of what they see and then we go and start formalizing the content from there.”
The objective: To allow learners to construct knowledge rather than just passively take it in.
Outside of school, you can find Lewis on the running trails pushing his son in a stroller or giving back to his local church.
His advice to students: Find someone to sit in the pew with you.
Lewis explains, “Find the people in your life who are facing the same direction as you, who are aiming for the same things. These are the people who can reorient you back when you get distracted.”
Imagine spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a boat on the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska.
Saint Ignatius College Prep teacher, Christopher Marks, did just that.
“Storms there are quite violent, and it’s isolating because you’re 150 miles off shore, and away from people,” says Marks.
His work involved collecting data to understand what species commercial fishing boats were catching. It’s experience he took to graduate school for marine biology, and that’s where he had an epiphany.
“I got to teach classes. It was a scary moment realizing I wanted to teach it, instead of do it,” says Marks, “I took my knowledge and turned it into a teaching career.”
His path brought Marks here, to Saint Ignatius College Prep where he shares his love of marine biology, born in ocean snorkeling adventures, with his students.
He describes those students as “very intelligent.”
“I sometimes get questions I don’t know the answer to so we learn it together. If it’s an interesting question, we go and explore,” says Marks.
He hopes to give his students a deep appreciation of the biological world. One way he does that is through an aquatic sciences class he developed with Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.
"There’s some really cool stuff out there,” says Marks, who makes it his mission to spread that good word in the classroom.
Have you ever wondered how you can be sitting in your chair, but moving through space at immense speeds at the same time?
Physics can explain why, and it’s one of the reasons teacher Danielle (Martincic) Pierce ‘95 loves the subject.
“It’s in everything you do,” she says,” To be able to understand physics and apply it, is the coolest thing ever.”
Cool - yes. Easy - not necessarily.
Mrs. Pierce says the only “C” she ever received in high school was in physics. Like so many of her students today, she had a lot going on: It was senior year. She had AP courses, and balancing everything was tough.
That said, the “C” was a progress report, not a measure of her interest in the subject.
“It just describes everything in your physical world,” says Mrs. Pierce, whose teacher at Saint Ignatius, Mr. John Balaban ‘64, became her mentor, and later, her colleague and dear friend.
The mom of two girls says maroon and gold are in her bones. She met her husband at 1076 West Roosevelt Road, she had her wedding reception in Tully…and she found her educational passion here.
Mrs. Pierce’s hope for her students: That they’re curious.
She says, “Physics is a great discipline. But to come up with answers, you have to ask great questions!”
Mrs. Cheri Smith
Science Teacher
Dr. Joel Southern
Science Teacher, Head Baseball Coach
Mr. Todd Strobel
Mathematics & Science Teacher, Head Boys Volleyball Coach
Ms. Amanda Wagner
Science Teacher
Saint Ignatius College Prep
Saint Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit Catholic school in the heart of Chicago, is a diverse community dedicated to educating young men and women for lives of faith, love, service and leadership.