Meet Bjorn

Hello, my name is Bjorn Paige and I’m the principal of ACMA (Arts & Communication Magnet Academy) in Beaverton, Oregon.

I love learning and helping students learn. As an administrator, I draw on my dozen years of teaching English, art, and leadership in Oregon and California to help students connect with school, parents remain a part of their students’ educational lives, and teachers feel free to innovate, take chances, and make education relevant, creative, and fun.

A dad myself, I understand the importance of school in a family’s life. A parent once cornered me in my classroom after back to school night and said: “In Armenia we have a saying: we send the students’ bodies to school, but we keep the bones at home.” While a little creepy, this stuck with me; no one cares more about their kids than parents, and as educators we do well to honor this connection to family.

As we do, we are at our best when we provide opportunities for kids to thrive and find inspiration in what they are studying. It has long been my goal to be a catalyst for hope, and as a site administrator I see my mission as this:

I believe that I can make a difference. By working hard and treating others with respect, I believe that I can help create a place where students, teachers, parents, and others in the school community can succeed, and this success is no less than a better life.”

I keep this blog for mostly education related odds and ends, and the occasional posts on Moon Knight and baseball.

 

Along the way I hope to provide a little peek into what it’s like to be a principal, what it’s like to be an educator, and what it’s like to be a human in this first quarter of the 21st century. 

 

 © bjornpaige and skins of ill shaped fishes, 2014-2024. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to bjornpaige and skins of ill shaped fishes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Principal as Pierrot (for a school production). Because being a principal sometimes means playing the fool.