He got a new start in Petaluma, California, after living all his life in Texas, when he began working at Casa Grande High School this year.

Bryce Gaskey, a new 9th and 10th grade English teacher at Casa Grande High School, moved here to Petaluma all the way from Texas. He chose to accept a position at Casa Grande High School because of his desire to teach in Northern California and to be a part of the Petaluma community.

So far, Gaskey describes his time at Casa Grande High School as really fun, working with engaging students who are respectful even though he is an outsider, making him feel a part of the community. He wanted to teach English because “English is more of an art mixed with a science, and it is a critical tool in teaching students how to become critical thinkers. It’s one of those things to glue them to communicate. It’s better to understand people.” His favorite unit to teach is dystopian literature and argumentative writing. Dystopian writing explores the deeper fears and explores dark sides of humanity. Argumentative writing is something Gaskey values teaching because he believes it’s important to prove your point and thoughts.

Gaskey’s inspirations for becoming a teacher was his mother, who has been teaching 6th grade English for 32 years in Texas and his football coach Jason Sanders; his coach always approached kids with grace and to push them to achieve the goals they had. Gaskey says that in Sanders’s class, he helped the students that need it the most at that moment the best he could, and he tried to push his students to achieve their goals. Gaskey’s favorite teacher was Ms. Nayland, his 10th grade English Honors teacher. She was harsh and had high expectations. When he was in her class for a second time in 12th grade, he says that she was more relaxed, funny, relatable, and helped achieve.

Gaskey has a degree in English Bachelors of Arts in English with a minor in Secondary Education, and he graduated with honors from Sam Houston State University.

Gaskey has been teaching high school English for 8 years and worked at 2 other high schools, Klein Cain High School and Tomball high school. His biggest challenge of his job is “decision fatigue, because [he] need[s] to make many decisions very often, and it will have major effects for [him] and [his] students.”

He says that his biggest strength is content knowledge and his ability to relate things to the real world. He would describe himself as empathetic, caring, provide support for everyone in his life, strives to be reliable, dependable, in the classroom he would describe himself as more of a coach trying to make students achieve his goals strict and blunt in a good way; outside of school he is a goof ball and a very tight bee.

His students observe that he is a very informative teacher in his classroom. He will stop to explain a part of a piece from Fahrenheit 451 that the students are about to take a quiz on by explaining what is happening in there and what that means. He is also very helpful to students, answering questions about their missing work and grading it.

If Gaskey had to teach a different class other than English, it would be film literature or video game literature.

Hobbies of his and his wife are going on walks and hikes, going to the farmers’ market, journaling, and hanging out with friends and family. He wasn’t scared of casa in general; it’s just moving all the way from Texas to here.

Gaskey hopes to see himself in the future as a contributing member of the English department and a teacher that others can trust and have best interest in mind.