Charyl Cathey has been working with Middle School students, their teachers and parents for over thirty years in both independent and public school settings. She believes that education must be holistic in nature addressing the cognitive, affective, aesthetic, spiritual and physical domains, responsive to the needs of individual learners and pursued in a team setting with students, teachers and parents all playing vital roles in the process. Ideally, she believes curricula needs to be developed before addressing methodology and time constraints.
Ms. Cathey is currently the Head of the Middle School at The Oregon Episcopal School, a position she has held for fourteen years. For five years prior to that she served as a teacher, assistant principal and chair of a project moving a large public district from junior high schools to middle schools. She began her career at The Colorado Springs School where she co-created both a middle school and an elementary school with interdisciplinary curricula based on the British Infant School model. In all of these settings, she has developed curricula, trained teachers, worked with parents and taught students all core subjects.
Ms. Cathey has co-directed Middle School Summer Workshops for the National Association of Independent Schools, for the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools and for Independent School Management. She has been a presenter at several local, regional and national conferences. She currently directs the annual Mentor Teacher Institute for PNAIS. She has consulted with public and independent schools throughout the nation on issues related to middle school philosophy and programs.
Ms. Cathey is particularly interested in preparing young adults to not only cope with the rapid changes they will face but to be agents of change themselves. She believes students need to learn the skills and processes that will empower them to ask the right questions, to know how and where to look for the answers and how to communicate the results effectively. Self-knowledge, critical thinking, flexibility, responsibility, creativity and effectiveness in interpersonal relations are key.