About Gregory
“Life is a joy; so should be learning.”
My mission is to embody Mae Carden’s idea in everything I do. Whether in my own learning journey or in my role as a guide for others’ growth, I make sure the anchor and foundation is joy.
That happens to be the secret to my own academic success, too. The first person in my family to pursue higher education, I was able to gain admission to the number one liberal-arts college in the nation. Hard work played a pivotal role in making that happen, to be sure. But what was behind that drive to work as hard as I could? It was curiosity and excitement and choosing to see every book and every essay I was assigned as an opportunity to stretch my mind and expand my horizons. It was joy.
As a teacher and tutor, my priority is to help students think and understand. It's not enough simply to know what the “right answers” are. It is far more crucial—and far more enjoyable—to know how to arrive at them. In the humanities, the how and why matter infinitely more than the what.
For that reason, I focus on explanation, on thinking through concepts and ideas, on talking through problems in understandable language in order to arrive at new and interesting solutions.
When I work with students, we read together. We write together. We learn and discover together. Much of the time, we also laugh together.
After all, learning is—or ought to be—a joy.
Education & Experience
Visiting Student, Harvard and Oxford Universities
Graduate Studies in Ancient Greek, Trinity Divinity School, and in Humanities at the Graduate Institute of St. John’s College
B.A. in History, Amherst College
M.A. in English, Middlebury Bread Loaf School
California State Single-Subject Teaching Credential (English)
14+ years as a writing coach
9+ years as an English teacher in California schools, both public and private