Ms. Miram Shafer, Mission Health Teacher and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Club Advisor, always reminds her students to drink water and eat breakfast. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”
Known to students as Ms. Mim, she has been teaching Health at Mission for eight years, since the fall of 2017. Her room is always open for students to hang out, read, or to check in with especially her after ninth grade.
In addition to Health for freshmen, she teaches juniors in Public Health 1 and seniors in Public Health 2. Each of these Public Health classes are part of a larger program with a paid internship and a college class each year.
Ms. Mim was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and moved to California from Western Massachusetts in 2014 for a summer. She loved California so much that she moved permanently after finishing her graduate degree in Public Health in May 2015.
When asked about teaching, Ms. Mim replied, “I’ve always taught health, but I’ve had different health teaching jobs, such as teaching at a school for pregnant and parenting teens. I’ve also taught health classes that include childbirth classes and child development classes.”
She continued saying, “I’ve also taught in clinical settings, for example, with doctors and midwives for patient care. Sometimes I teach for City College in a community health worker program and at the moment I do some additional teaching for a program for new biology teachers.”
Outside of teaching, Ms. Mim enjoys “being with friends, and that would look like going on hikes, having dinner parties, traveling, or being in community.”
She also said, “I’ve traveled to a lot of places. One of my favorite places has been traveling to Greece, since I have gone a number of times.”
She also enjoyed one trip to Japan two years ago, where she and a group of teachers learned more about teaching. “It was really incredible.”
Overall, some advice that Ms. Mim would give to students: “Be kind. Be open to new opportunities and be curious about other people. Always remember you know so much, and the cool thing about life is you get to keep learning and growing. Lastly, for seniors, stay in touch and come back to visit as guest presenters.”
