Before Erica Shepard became a Marine Biology and AVID teacher at M-A, she was a small-town teenager navigating the highs and lows of high school life.
Shepard grew up in Sebastopol, a close-knit town north of San Francisco. She attended a small academy with only a graduating class of around 300, Analy High School, “which is a very unfortunate name,” Shepard said.
As a teen, Shepard explored a range of interests. “I fit a couple of clichés,” she said. “I was in the band all four years and played the clarinet. I also played school soccer, so I was into athletics as well. I played club soccer too, from when I was around 4 to 18.”
Academics played a large role in Shepard’s life as a teenager, but her school’s resources were limited. “I took an AP if it was offered, but my school was small, so we didn’t have nearly as many options as M-A does,” Shepard said.
Shepard remembers the deep sense of community she felt growing up. “The best part of high school is that you get to see your friends every day, and you don’t have to work to go find them,” she said. “You have this community that stays together.”
Shepard treasures many memories from high school. “My senior year, one of my friends saw this challenge online where you apparently can’t eat an entire spoonful of cinnamon. He gathered an audience of probably 60 people to watch him try and eat a spoonful of cinnamon, and then proceeded to just cough up brown clouds into the air,” Shepard said. “60 people watched this kid essentially make a fool of himself and laughed at him. But none of it was malicious. It was all in good fun.”
High school was also where Shepard first experienced a deep sense of loss. “I had a classmate who was killed by the police my junior year,” Shepard said. “We were really good friends in middle school, but we’d just kind of fallen out. It was very hard for me to process that this person, whom I had once been friends with, I would never have the chance to reconnect with.”
Although she lived in a small town of limited racial diversity, her town began to evolve. “In the end, a lot of good changes were made, but it was really hard, especially because he was the only person of color in my class,” Shepard said.
“If you had asked me in high school, I would have given it a five [out of 10], but in retrospect, it was pretty good,” she said.
One of Shepard’s biggest realizations was that high school wasn’t just about the events that happened, but the way they shaped her into the person she is today. The challenges she faced growing up in a small community—whether it was balancing academics and athletics or dealing with loss—have helped her better relate to her students at M-A. She credits some of her passion for teaching and connecting with students to the experiences she had growing up in a small community.
“High school is hard, but later on, when you look back on it, you don’t remember the hard parts as much as you remember the good parts. It’s worth it. It’s good. Just don’t give up,” Shepard said.
