On a bulletin board near her desk are Kimberely Mizenko’s pins, too numerous to count. Even with a pin on every continent, Mizenko, a math teacher at Arvada West, still feels there is so much more she needs to experience.
She has traveled a lot from a young age, mostly for her dad’s job. But her first large travel experience was when she swapped homes with a family and moved from Houston to England, and was able to experience everything that came with that.
She recalls, “I lived in England for a year, which was amazing, and while we were there we traveled around some of the South Western European countries.” She understands how important those experiences were for second and third graders, and she credits them for sparking her ongoing love of travel.
While those experiences were important, she credits much of her love to her involvement once she reached high school. Her family was big into travel already because of her dad’s job, but her passion for travel would continue to grow as she got older.
“Starting in high school, we started doing a yearly international trip, and that’s when my travel bug started.” She crossed 4 of the 7 continents, including Australia, North America, Europe, and South America, early on.
A deeper look into her busy life: “I’m the busiest person I know.”
Mizenko’s life is anything but boring, not only because of travel, but also because of the amount of recreation activities, miscellaneous groups, and random events she participates in.
“I participate in a lot of recreational leagues, volleyball is a big one that I do in my free time. I host trivia, and I just like to host different social events” she adds. Free time is a myth in Mizenko’s life, as she has something going on every day after school, sometimes multiple things.
Mizenko’s social traits come from many different things. One of those is the community she felt she had as a child in the Harry Potter fandom.
Her Uncle bought her the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, right as it came out, she was around the same age as Harry. She never thought she would have the relationship she now has with the series, as at first she didn’t even want to read the books, despite this initial distaste, soon after she made a lifetime bond with the characters.
The culture of that fandom was very unified, and that was a large reason she enjoyed it so much. “In today’s culture, we are very polarized and political, and I think the era of Harry Potter was the opposite of that where everybody felt like a family and felt like we could connect over one thing she muses.
In her classroom today, Mizenko is not afraid to display what she loves. From the map to her wall filled with Harry Potter posters, she wears her passions on her sleeve.
Because of her strong knowledge of what she enjoys, she knew she wanted to be a teacher from early on. “I had a friend who asked me to teach her something, and I really enjoyed it. That pushed me in that direction.”
While she knew it was teaching that would be her future, she didn’t know it would be math until high school. She never enjoyed grading opinions, such that comes with an English class, and instead found a love for math because of the exact rules. “In math, it’s right or wrong, super simple, so I knew I wanted to do math” Mizenko explains.
She went to Colorado School of Mines and got a degree in Math and Computer Science, and she also took other classes in teaching at Metropolitan State University and Western Colorado University, where she got her teaching certificate and master’s degree.
Specifically, her teaching style forces students to interact and work math problems and topics out together. She believes that when students are just lectured, they retain less information. “Math is not really a spectator sport” she elaborates.
In Mizenko’s life, she loves the noise and variety that comes with being a teacher, traveling, and keeping busy. She is a person who is not afraid of the judgement that can come from expressing her personality boldly. Mizenko embraces the chaos and excitement of a life full of passions, teaching, and exploration, finding joy in the connections she makes and the experiences she creates along the way.
