Avery Holm
Born and raised in a small town in Minnesota, USA.
Educational background
She grew up in the local public school system. In the local high school she joined the Arts Magnet Program where core subjects (English, science, social studies, etc.) were taught as interdisciplinary subjects with art. Across four years she explored creative writing and music, culminating in a senior capstone project. After graduating high school she ventured out of her hometown to attend Cottey College in Nevada (ne-VAY-da), Missouri.
Cottey College is a small women’s college that focuses on cultivating leadership and empowerment in young women. Originally a two year degree school it has started to offer four year bachelor programs in select fields. Avery spent her time there studying international relations, history, and French. Through her experiences in volunteering with after school programs and working as a student representative for the college president she became passionate about education. Through summer programs and her academic adviser she began studying Japanese outside of class hours. She also studied Social Justice on a school trip to Guatemala. Cottey became the springboard into her undergraduate studies.
After graduating with an Associate Degree, she transfer to Long Island University Global College (LIU Global) to finish a Bachelor’s Degree in Global Studies with a focus in comparative education. She studied in Taiwan, Thailand, India, and Turkey with the Comparative Religions and Cultures Program. She completed her independent semester and research project in Sapporo, Japan. For the last semester, Avery returned to Brooklyn, NYC to complete her thesis ‘How We Succeed: A Comparative Study of High Performing Public schools in New York City, Japan, and Finland’.
After university she work in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) for four years. She gained a lot of first hand experience with Japanese public elementary and junior high school education and that propelled her to find the EdGlo program.
Expectations for EdGlo
I have a lot of expectations for the program and for myself in the program. I’m really looking forward to a community of educators and education-loving people who can bring a lot of different perspectives from their cultures, education, work experiences, and life experiences. I want this program to challenge my views and beliefs in education and how we learn. I expect discomfort and challenges. EdGlo should be a program that forces and guides you to new perspectives and new ways of knowing so that you can build on your own experiences and knowledge.
For myself in EdGlo, I want my academic skills honed so that I can feel proud of my work. I want it to give me a critical lens for research and trends in education in my country and around the world. I expect it to be hard work and that I will work hard. I expect a lot of collaborative work with my classmates and potentially other classes or faculties in the university. I don’t expect (nor want) it to be an island with a choir singing to itself. I believe EdGlo with help me build knowledge and skills that will prove indispensable in my future. An much like my undergrad studies I want it to always be relevant and useless in any context, local or global.
