Brent Pillsbury, alumnus of the Gevirtz School’s Teacher Education Program, published his first book this year: Screens Down: An Unapologetic Vision of Good Teaching When Technology is a Passenger, Not the Driver.
The essay collection, co-authored with teaching colleague and friend Ron Archer, invites future and current secondary education teachers and administrators to reflect on and improve their approaches to classroom teaching. Beginning with an essay sharing the duo’s thoughts on treating technology as a tool for learning rather than a blueprint, the book continues to relay other wisdom Pillsbury and Archer have acquired from years of teaching. “At its heart,” they write in the introduction, “This book is about being a good teacher and providing a rigorous, relevant, and life-launching education.”
Pillsbury has taught Social Sciences at Mission Viejo High School for the past 28 years, where he continues to teach today. He also teaches in the Business department at Saddleback Junior College and coaches tennis. Both schools are in Orange County, where Pillsbury is from. He holds an Associate’s degree from Saddleback.
Pillsbury has earned two degrees at UC Santa Barbara. After receiving a B.A. in History with a minor in Coaching as a transfer student to UC Santa Barbara, he went on to earn a Master’s in Education and a teaching credential from the Gevirtz School in 1995. On his class website, Pillsbury shares that he became a teacher, because “I really wanted to help students get through their difficult years and change the way I was taught in school.”
He thanks the faculty at the Gevirtz School for helping him along this path. Their work, he shares, “Changed my life and thousands of students who have been through my classroom.”