Our Faculty

Senior Kindergarten Instructors

Christine Edmonds-Mutcher and Alison Nanda are our Kindergarten Instructors. They are teaching this class as a team, and have a strong vision for continuing to develop St. Timothy's program of Classical education for our younger students.

Christine Edmonds-Mutcher

Christine has a B.Sc. (Occupational Therapy) from Queen's University, specializing in pediatric rehabilitation. She comes to St. Timothy’s with a wealth of practical experience in classical education. She was introduced to a classical education model ten years ago when researching education practices to homeschool her own children and has continued to research classical booklists and review classical curricula. Her two younger children are students in St. Timothy’s and she homeschools her oldest daughter using a classical approach. She believes in the importance of exposing young children to good literature and beautiful language.

Christine has a deep regard for nature, botany in particular, and a desire to cultivate a sense of wonder in children and to develop their observation skills. She and her husband Dale attend St. George’s Anglican Church with their children.

Alison Nanda

Alison was born in England and grew up in a Christian household with a clergyman father. She has a B.Ed. from the University of Ottawa and a B.A. (History/English Literature) from the University of Western Ontario. She has taught in an International school in Panama and for several years in Vancouver in inner-city as well as suburban schools. She has also spent time working with special needs children in a local nursery school.

Alison and her husband Kris and their two children attend St. George’s Anglican Church. She is excited to be teaching in a school where she can actually teach about the Christian faith!

Naomi King

Naomi King comes to us with a B.Ed. from the University of Ottawa and an Honours BA (English/Psychology) from Wilfrid Laurier University, and has achieved her Grade 9 Piano and Grade 3 Music History and Harmony from the Royal Conservatory of Music. She has worked on First Nations Reserves in North Western Ontario, as well as with various organizations working with children from low income neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto.

Mrs. King and her husband Darren attend St. Alban’s Anglican church. She has attended the Logos School Classical Teaching Workshop and applies her teaching and volunteer experience to creating a rich and joyous learning environment for her students.

Senior Teacher – Rachel Bloomquist

Rachel Bloomquist comes to St. Timothy's with a range of spiritual, educational, professional, and personal qualities that have prepared her for this worthy venture.

Rachel was born in India to missionary parents who were wonderful models of Christian discipleship and love. Her education, while focused on the history of ideas and literature that have shaped Western civilization, also developed in her a love of science, languages, art, and music.

After completing her BA, Rachel lived and worked in Spain for five years with her husband, Greg. (Two of their four children were born in Spain.) Upon their return to Canada, Greg was appointed a professor of Theology at Saint Paul University (Ottawa) and the Scholar-in-residence at Saint Mark the Evangelist (Anglican) Church (Ottawa) while Rachel worked as an assistant in a Christian Montessori school for six years. Following that, she worked as an occasional teacher in the Ottawa District and Ottawa Catholic School Boards. She has also completed teacher training in Christian Classical methods at Logos
Academy (Idaho).

Rachel's life of faith in Christ has been enriched by seeing God's Spirit at work in and through Christians of many denominations, languages, and cultures. She seeks to impart a joyful and sure faith in Jesus Christ to the children in her classroom and to encourage them to see God the Father's handiwork in this creation and in the unfolding of history.

Academy Director & Teacher – Dr. Michael Klaassen

Michael Klaassen brings tremendous learning and experience to St Timothy's as a classics scholar and teacher. He taught Latin and classics to all grades, with a focus on grades seven and eight, at the Episcopal Academy in Pennsylvania from 1995-2005, where he served as Chair of Department of Classical Languages from 2000-2005 and was a curriculum advisor to many different grades. Fluent in Latin and Greek, he co-authored Episcopal's "New Steps in Latin" series of textbooks. In his academic career, he has worked on topics as diverse as editing the speeches of the pioneering Canadian neurologist William Osler, comparing Greek and Japanese art and researching the roots of words for a medical encyclopedia. He has presented numerous papers to the Classical Association of Canada meetings.

Originally from Waterloo, Michael has Master's degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Pennsylvania, where he has also recently (Spring 2010) completed a PhD in Classics. Michael and his family moved back to Canada in 2006 after spending one year in Rome.

Dr. Klaassen is assisted in his wide range of teaching responsibilities by
paid and volunteer staff with expertise in various subject areas.