Interview with US Religion Teacher & Interim 6-12 Religion Department Chair: Michael Sheehan ’04
Ryan Sewell ’24
Michael Sheehan ’04, Upper School Religion Teacher and Interim 6-12 Religion Department Chair, truly embodies EA’s values. He graduated in 2004 where he played as an offensive lineman on the football team. Sheehan now teaches World Religions and continues to positively impact his students each and every day.
Photo courtesy of sharesociety.ca
Q. What made you want to teach, and religion in particular?
A. My journey to teaching started when I was a sophomore in high school. Honestly this is going to sound a little bit cliché because I am working here now, but I had really amazing teachers at EA, and it really showed through my sophomore year — it just looked like an amazing way to spend a life. That was a big piece of it.
Q. Did you happen to major in religion in college?
A. I actually started, when I was in college, as a biology major because at the time my favorite teacher at EA was a biology teacher, and it seemed like a natural fit. But biology was not a fit for me. I really struggled, and it was not a path that was going to work for me. In the middle of my freshman year at St. Joe’s, I switched from being a biology major to undecided because I had to figure it out.
I knew I wanted to teach, I just didn’t know what or how or when. At St. Joe’s you had to take a bunch of general education requirement classes. Before I graduated, no matter what, I had to take a bunch of philosophy courses and theology courses. So as a hack, I became a philosophy and theology major, so I could get into the best classes because I knew it was going to change [my major] anyway.
But I got into these upper level classes and got to know these really amazing professors, and this kind of blew my mind a little bit. I was like ‘wow, this could be a really interesting way to think about how to teach, especially from a high school perspective.’ That really was it — that was the end of my freshman year of college, so from sophomore year of high school when I decided I knew I wanted to be a teacher to when I was a freshman in college was when the path became clear.
Q. What is the importance of studying religion?
A. I think religion does a couple of things: it gives us the opportunity to teach skills like critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis. To give kids an avenue to critical thinking would be one of my top answers. I also think, this may be a little bit idealistic, that religion can act as the connective tissue of the humanities. There are some things that can happen, and some things that I can address in the classroom that still hit right to the root of what it means to be a humanities student. To peer off the edge of history and to peer off the edge of the literature side, I feel like that’s an awesome opportunity to get to teach religion in that sort of way.
Q. What do you like to do in your free time?
A. I don’t have much of it because of my kids, but I need to read; I don’t love to read, I need to read — that is a part of who I am. I’m a big fan of astronomy, and I spend a lot of my time outside in my backyard. I have a miniature observatory setup, that’s something that is really important to me. And honestly, from a hobby standpoint, that is probably it right now. Sometimes hobbies come, sometimes hobbies go. I would consider cooking a hobby, you know like making pizza, which I enjoy doing. However, the thing that’s most important to me is family and friends. If I do have free time, chances are that’s where it’s going to be directed.
Q. What was your favorite memory as an EA student?
A. My favorite memory at the Episcopal Academy hands down was my senior year. My brother was a freshman, and there were a handful of times where he actually got to line up right next to me on the offensive line, and we got to play actual snaps together. Those are the types of memories that are the best for me.
Q. Do you have any advice or anything you would like to say to EA students?
A. I believe that there is a learning opportunity in every experience if you are open to finding it.