MES teacher spotlight: Teri Christensen

Teri Christensen grew up in Orlando, Florida during the mid-1970s to early 1980s. She spent most of her summers hanging with her friends at Walt Disney World, where her dad worked as an accountant. She moved to Washington D.C. in the early 1990s where she attended Hayfield Secondary School, the same school that was the home of the movie, “Remember the Titans.” After graduating from Hayfield in 1992, she attended Brigham Young University in Provo, earning a Humanities/English Teaching Composite degree in Secondary Education.

Christensen began her teaching career at Springville Middle School in Springville, Utah, teaching seventh-grade English for one year. Moving to Phoenix, Arizona for her husband’s job, she took a break from teaching. In 1999 they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. She began working as a part-time kindergarten aide in 2006 with the Jordan School District and then a full-time special education and reading aide in the Granite School District where she stayed until 2012 when they moved to Morgan for the clean air and mountain view. She has held several jobs in Morgan School District: substitute teacher, MMS Library Aide and Reading Specialist Aide. 

She returned to teaching in 2017 when she was hired at Morgan Elementary School to teach fifth grade before moving to fourth grade in 2019. 

In the fall of 2022 she made the move to Morgan Middle School where she currently teaches seventh and eighth grade English. She has also co-taught seventh and eighth grade SPED English along with Advanced reading.

“I became a teacher because I knew I was bossy!” said Christensen. “I was always playing school with my brothers, and I had to be the teacher because I was good at bossing them around.”

“I love teaching because I live for the ‘lightbulb’ going on in a student because I’ve explained a concept in a way that connects with them.” 

For example, Christensen said math was always hard for her. “For years I felt too stupid to do it, so to compensate, I had to reteach myself ways to do math that weren’t ‘the norm.’” Christensen said she is constantly providing her students with alternate strategies so that they can feel and be successful.

“I love that teaching is new every single day,” she said. “There are so many variables involved that it keeps me on my toes and always trying to improve.”

Christensen met her husband while attending BYU, in a guitar class. “It was practically love at first sight,” she said. They have been married for 30 years and together they have two “brainy ginger-haired” boys and one bonus daughter-in-law and a grandcat.

In her spare time she loves to knit, read, travel and spend time with her family.