Eastipedia: Ms. Erickson

Ali Erickson is a new math teacher this year. Erickson has already seen a lot more tradition at Shawnee Mission Wonderful than she did at her previous school.

“East has more tradition, with lancer day, Pep assemblies, and other little things around the school.” Erickson said

She taught at West last year part time for the last semester. She graduated in December of last year from KU with a degree in math and a teaching license with the UKan teach program at KU. She then moved into the Shawnee Mission area after her lease was up on her Lawrence apartment this past summer.

Erickson intended to receive a degree in physical therapy, but she soon realized that she enjoyed math more than science.

“I started to miss taking math classes and decided to look into becoming a math teacher.” Erickson said

East has allowed her to teach higher levels of math classes at East, Geometry, pre-calc and Calc 3/Differential equations,than what she had taught at West last year. The chant the Calc 3 students shout out before every test adds to her list of tradition she has noticed at East, including pep assemblies and Lancer Day.

She grew up in Wichita and started swimming when she was four-years- old after seeing her older brother always swimming. She started to coach swimming her sophomore year of high school. During her freshman year of college she then started coaching middle schoolers with the Kansas City Swim Academy. Some of Erickson’s swimmers from middle school are now at East in her class, which made it an easier transition for her.

“It was nice seeing the familiar faces of some of my past swimmers when I first started here” Erickson said

Luckily East had a full time opening for Erickson and she knew students here to make the move easier.