Department Spotlight: Interviewing Mrs. Ankorn, Mrs. Gomes, and Mr. Pschirrer

by Theodore O’Harra

Here at Lewis and Clark High School, we are lucky enough to have multifaceted and expansive English Language Arts and Social Sciences departments. In total, Lewis and Clark offers thirteen Individual English courses and eleven history/ social studies courses. Today, I’d love to introduce you to a small portion of the staff who teach those combined twenty-four classes and, more so, the teachers who go beyond. 

Beth Ankorn has been teaching at Lewis and Clark High School for only four years now but has been teaching within the greater Spokane area for many years. Born and raised in Washington, she attended Gonzaga University as an undergrad before heading to teach abroad at a middle school in Japan. After a time, she came back to the Pacific Northwest and attended Eastern Washington University for her master's in English literature. Afterwards, she worked at Spokane Falls Community College as an intern for the second language teaching department, which she would continue to pursue as she headed back to GU to earn her second master’s degree — this time in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, or TSOL. Ankorn would teach at various places before finally ending up at Lewis and Clark, including working at Gonzaga University, Spokane Falls Community College, and even Sacajawea Middle School. But in 2021 she would settle for the foreseeable future at 521 West 4th Avenue. When asked about her previous teaching experience of working at Gonzaga University and how it compares to teaching in a high school setting, she stated, “When I taught at university there was a lot of creating content by yourself. There were some times for collaboration but a lot of having to justify the need for the program I worked in…The great thing about K-12 is that we have so many smart educators that have to take care of hugely complex individuals and their stories. So in order to accomplish our jobs we have to lean on each other.” 

Mrs. Ankorn has been teaching Multilingual Learners Language Arts and has been for eight years. When it comes to Lewis and Clark High School, she is grateful for the incredible combination of students, assets, cultures, and languages that create a diverse and thriving school environment.

It should be noted that teaching Multilingual Learners Language Arts was not Mrs. Ankorn’s first ambition — she had previously wanted to be an Olympic swimmer, and in her high school years travelled internationally for sports, which she described as a “vehicle to find what I was made of.” “I would say sports saved me and gave me a vision for a different future…” That vision led her to Japan, as previously mentioned. She describes her year there as a “culture shock” in which she was made aware of what it felt like to be an “outsider in a mainstream culture.” The experience taught her how much she valued her family and informed her decision thereafter to stay in Spokane. In her own words, “Now the world comes to my classroom,” something she only describes as “the best job in the world.” 

Maegan Gomes is, without a doubt, one of the school’s most beloved teachers. Born in Spokane, she spent her undergrad at Eastern before obtaining her master’s degree at Gonzaga University where she focused primarily on social linguistics and language acquisition.

Gomes has been here at LC for over ten years now, and any student can tell you she is one of the school’s most well-known educators among the student body. Since she was four, she wanted to be a teacher, as her father was, and first began to follow that dream by playing classroom with stuffed animals in her backyard. Mrs. Gomes, similarly to Mrs. Ankorn, taught abroad — in her case, Brazil for months at a time. Eventually, however, she’d come to teach ninth-grade English, which she describes as a “great first gig… I got challenged in every way possible.” It would not be until a bit later that she’d get to share her true educational passion with students. She finds particular enjoyment in the flexibility of teaching AP World History, as with such a broad topic, each teacher may choose what they wish to cover and how much time is spent on any given subject. For Gomes, that topic is certainly the Mongol Empire, which she is always be happy to talk about if you happen to visit her in her classroom that which she affectionately calls a “dank cavern.” 

Lastly, we’ll cover a more unorthodox member of Lewis and Clark's Language department. Greg Pschirrer has been here at LC for twenty-two years and previously taught at Rogers and Gonzaga Prep. Throughout his time at Lewis and Clark, he has served as the head of the theatre department, in addition to teaching AP World History and English for a short period of time. Mr. Pschirrer graduated from Gonzaga with a bachelor’s degree in History before attending Central Washington University for his master’s in Theatre Production. He has been teaching theatre classes since he was fourteen at Spokane’s Civic and Spokane's Children’s Theatre. He advocates for theatre on a national level and has traveled to Washington DC to lobby and promote the importance of art in public schools to state senators and representatives, a task he will continue this year.

Pschirrer testifies that arts education is the “best way to flex life skills in an accessible high school setting. Everything that we do within theatre and the arts is asking you to build life skills that you will need beyond high school, and it does it in an accessible and equitable way that forces all of us, students, staff, and community members alike, to examine the way we think about things and the way we do things…to be better human beings.” 

Mr. Pschirrer admits that the vast majority of students who pass through the Lewis and Clark Tiger Drama program do not continue theatre as a profession, but it is evident that the skills are built there are essential and transfer to many aspects of life and work. It’s quite clear why year after year, many students who have previously passed through Lewis and Clark’s theatre department will come back to support the program or just to say hello, a fact that Mr. Pschirrer is very proud of.

—

Edited by Mara Bech