Instructor Spotlight: Mrs. Kim Birge-Liberman

Mrs. Kim Birge-Liberman pictured (on the left) with dolphins!

Mrs. Kim Birge-Liberman has recently taken a spot as a new teacher for Unity & Diversity of Biological Systems. Her background and enthusiasm for teaching makes her the missing puzzle piece to the course at OHS.

“I decided that when I was about 5 years old that I wanted to be a marine biologist,” Mrs. B says.

Growing up in Connecticut with parents with a great appreciation for the outdoors, she decided at a young age that she wanted to study Marine Biology. At just 11 years old, she earned her scuba diving license and attended numerous summer camps and classes at a local aquarium. She ended up going to college for Marine Biology and graduated to teach in outdoor and environmental education. While teaching, she met her husband and some of her life long friends. Her goal at the time was to run an outdoor and environmental education center, prompting her to go back to college for a masters degree and a student teaching degree. The goal to run her own education center, although never fulfilled, caused her to fall in love with teaching in a classroom. 

“I liked that you can build long term relationships with students over the course of an academic year or when you’ve been in a place for some time, it can be over many years,” she says.

She describes her decision to transfer to OHS as “ready for a new challenge.” Previously, much of her work involved teaching middle schoolers and the opportunity of teaching a highschool curriculum invited her to go more in depth in biological material. She also enjoyed the remote experience of teaching online from covid, without the painful struggles of sorting out technology. Eventually, she turned to OHS’s perfected online teaching style and thought it would be an enjoyable experience.

“As a human being, I came in with no preconceived notion [of what the school was going to be like] and asked a lot of questions,” she says.

She describes her fellow teachers and students as very helpful resources to sort out any technology issues or learning about the community. During office hours, students are invited to ask questions about biology, the labs, or to just chat. Recently Mrs. B has been looking into finding more ways of engaging students such as Gimkits or Kahoots, as suggested by students. 

Mrs. B believes that the most important thing to learning things is to keep a sense of wonder. Even as an adult, she believes that she hasn’t lost her sense of curiosity and wants to always allow kids to explore their sense of wonder.

Scuba diving with a shark, Mrs. B can be seen on the far left, her daughter closest to the shark

During her free time, she loves giving back to the community whether that was being involved in refugee services or helping foster guide puppies with the Fidelco guide dog training center. Her family also loves to explore the outdoors, frequently hiking, camping, or gardening. She has traveled to all but 3 states and has lived in 9 different states across the country.

With Velma, just after she earned her red vest on her 5 month birthday

Mrs. B at Glacier National Park

“I also have a funny obsession with vanilla beans, I like to collect them from all around the world,” she says.

Overall, she is really enjoying the experience of getting to know people here at OHS. The students that she teaches vary from living on a farm, running a business, or engaging in science projects. She thinks that it's been delightful to learn everyone's story and what brought them to OHS.