Grasle climbs, dances through life outside of school

Michelle Valencia
Opinion Editor

If you ask students at Sandy High School if they know who Sadie Grasle is most students will describe her as a fun science teacher. Beyond that not many know who she really is as a person and what her life consists of outside of school. 

Grasle has been teaching at SHS for four and a half years and has taught all sorts of different science subjects like Physics 1, Biology, Chemistry, AP Chemistry, and a newly offered class for the next school year called Kitchen Chemistry. She has held many other teaching jobs in the past.

“I have been teaching here for about four and a half years. Before that I taught in an outdoor school in Garibaldi for a year, then subbed for a few months and taught with virtual scholars in Portland,” Grasle said. 

Many people fail to realize that teaching is not the only thing that teachers like Grasle do in their life. Teachers all have their own interests and hobbies that fill up their time away from teaching and Grasle has a long list of them. 

“I have a lot of interests and hobbies outside of teaching, some of them are cooking, swing dancing, reading, and climbing are my main ones,” Grasle said. 

Grasle occupies her time by doing activities that free her mind away from her teaching job. Activities and hobbies allow her to put all her attention into one thing at a time. 

“In my free time, I love to rock climb. I mostly climb indoors at Circuit Bouldering Gym but sometimes I’ll venture outside and do some top-roping,” Grasle said. 

She also enjoys occupying her time with activities that are much more laid back and relaxing.

“I also love to read, each year I do a reading challenge with my friends where we share what we’ve been reading and recommend books to each other. Lately, I’ve mostly been listening to audiobooks which work really well with my long commute from Portland,” Grasle said.

Alongside reading and listening to books, Grasle also spends her time cooking and hanging out with her friends on the time she has off. 

“I’ve also been cooking a lot more. This is the first time I’ve lived without roommates so having the kitchen to myself has made it a lot easier to cook bigger/more time consuming meals. With my friends, I also love to play board games and swing dance,” Grasle said. 

During the summer Grasle is able to do a lot more of the activities that she appreciates doing like dancing. In fact, last summer Grasle taught a dance class here as part of the SHS summer program. 

“I definitely plan to bring back the dance class this summer! It took a lot of time and work to plan the class last summer, so I’m really looking forward to being able to come in and teach it without a ton of prep work this year. I’m also hoping the class will be bigger, last year many didn’t feel comfortable taking summer classes during COVID. But I’m really looking forward to bringing in some guest instructors and having fun with it this summer,” Grasle exclaimed. 

Grasle hopes she can continue to have a fun and interesting life outside teaching while impacting her students while in the classroom.

“I want everyone to leave my classroom confident that they can think for themselves and not be intimidated by science in the future,” Grasle said.

All of these hobbies and activities that are part of Grasle’s life outside of teaching build her up to be the teacher that her students see in the classroom.