John          Bradbury

E-Mail: jbradbury@havasu.k12.az.us

Teacher, Round Table Program
             Talent Ed / Grade 8.5

• B.S. Elementary Education, Northern Arizona University

I am currently forty years old, and I have a fair history behind me and a remarkable future ahead of me. While many of the finer details have been necessarily omitted, I have chosen to share this very personal information because I believe that it is the events of a person's life--and his or her responses to those events--which have the greatest impact on who he or she will become.  My story, although not commonplace when it occurred, is an all too familiar story for youth in America today.  If you would care to read an abridged version of an aspiring writer's personal memoirs, click here.  Remember, however, that as a life is a work in progress, so too is one's recollection of it. 

For the purposes of this home page, let the following brief (?) synopsis suffice:

I live in Lake Havasu City, Arizona and teach in the local public school
district.

My wife Kathy works in the local hospital in the obstetrics department. 

My oldest daughter Shaundar is a   semester away  from graduating  with               
a degree  in psychology from the University of Puget  Sound in Washington,
and is now considering various graduate schools.                                                    
                                                                                                                                  

My youngest daughter Jaime is attending Mohave Community
College with plans  to transfer  to the  University of Arizona to 
pursue a degree in  veterinary  medicine.  
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                    

I began working at a rather young age, and I have done many things    in my life including restaurant work from dishwasher to manager and  construction   work from concrete to roofing.  I worked as a photographer  and a darkroom  technician right out of high school and, at one time,  believed that this  is what I would do with my life.  I have been  an auto mechanic, a salesman,   a warehouse manager and a truck driver,  and I once worked my way to a regional   manager position in a prominent  local janitorial company.  I spent several   hard, hot years working  in the foundry of a factory which manufactured chain  saws.   Early  in my life, I developed an excellent work ethic, and I  have been blessed   with an ability to learn and do most anything.   I have never been fired   from a job; I've experienced such a variety  of professions simply by  virtue  of circumstances--both fortunate and  unfortunate.         More . . .

I am--as all teachers must be--on an endless quest to become the best teacher that I can.  I work in a fully self-contained alternative program for eighth grade students who are academically at risk due largely to lack of interest, (for want of a better way to put it).  The students in my program have been retained in the eighth grade--most were also retained prior to the eighth grade as well--and exhibit a high level of self-discipline problems in the classroom and in other areas of their life.  The demands of this program require that I constantly search for ways to improve my curriculum, management techniques and presentation skills.

I am a risk taker.  I enjoy pushing myself to the limit in an endeavor to achieve the all elusive self actualization.  My favorite activities are those that put me in and pit me against the natural world.  While  this statement may seem to indicate a desire to compete with nature, I am  an active advocate for education about and preservation of the environment.  In truth, I seek to intimately understand the natural world, and any   competition  is solely with myself and in an attempt to better  understand my own human nature.  I am an avid and accomplished  rock climber and river rafter, and I wear through hiking boots  at an alarming rate; I engage in all types of muscle powered and  gravity driven outdoor activities.  I enjoy  traveling and camping  in the wilderness, and I've spent quality time  in some of the most  remote and beautiful places--primarily in the  American West.

                              
I have an insatiable desire to  understand all that I can.  As a result, I am  a voracious  reader;  some of my  favorite authors and poets are   Edward Abbey, Orson  Scott Card, t. s. eliot, Edward Arlington Robinson, Hemingway,    Shakespeare, Falkner, Stephen King (he spins a  great yarn), Isaac Asimov,   Ray Bradbury   (any relation?), Robinson Jeffers, Gary Paulsen; the list goes on and on and on . . . !

                                                      
Simply fascinated by the humanistic disciplines, I also have a passion for theater, art and music.  I have some limited talent for drawing, painting and singing, and I love to write.