Heavenly Hicks, right, exploring a historical site.
Heavenly Hicks
- Where did you work before Lab?
- Ms. Hicks most recently worked at the International High School at Largo in Maryland as the testing coordinator. She has also been running her own educational consultancy, Whole Child, for the past six years. Before that Ms. Hicks worked at the McLean School of Maryland specializing in differentiated instruction for grades 5-7 and at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service as the assistant director of the African Studies Program.
- What is your philosophy or style when you interact with students?
- “What students learn in the classroom should be real world applicable. It should allow them to create a product. They should be able to deeply question the ‘why’ behind anything they and we do, and they should first and foremost feel safe – safe to try, safe to fail, safe to be themselves, safe to ask the wrong question, safe to be.”
- What do you hope the students you work with will say about you at the end of the year?
- “That they felt safe, seen and embraced as they are.”
- What was one of your favorite pandemic activities?
- “Ordering takeout from restaurants I’ve never tried before. I’m an avid cook. Cooking is like jazz to me — a little bit of this, a little bit of that — which is why I suck at baking. But during the pandemic, cooking was the last thing I wanted to do. It was nice to be able to support local businesses and bring a bit of the outside world into my little cocoon.”