Brian Jacobs grew up in Southern California and has been teaching GATE English and Humanities for twenty-seven years in both K-12 and college settings. Along with teaching English, he has been a Gifted and Talented Coordinator. He is 49, lives in Pasadena and has been married for 13 years to Thye, a Professor of Nursing and a Nurse Practitioner. After graduating with his BA in English Brian began teaching and ventured into studying towards a Master’s degree in Women Studies & a Master of Fine Arts in Writing & Poetics (where he was the assistant to the Poet Allen Ginsberg) while also earning his Teaching Credential in English. During this time he walked half way around the world (No! Really?) while on a peace pilgrimage with Buddhist monks commemorating WWII visiting Europe, the Middle East, India and South East Asia. He returned a few years later to walk though India with the same monks to commemorate the anniversary of Gandhi’s famous Salt March. He went back to India in the summer of 2017. Brian is also a three time Fulbright Scholar, which has allowed him to study in Brazil, where he studied its water issues; China, where he studied its vast 10,000 year history; and Japan, spending time to participate in a case study in one of its small towns near the Japanese Alps. He had also earned a National Endowment of Humanities grant to China, studying its philosophies and histories while living in Xi’an. He subsequently participated in a grant from Fund For Teachers visiting South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho, plus earning other various grants that have taken him to places all over in the United States. He teaches teachers at a university in Fuzhou, China every summer under a grant from SABEH for the last five years. Last summer marked his 22nd trip to China and where he also visited Hong Kong, Macau, Philippines, India, Nepal and Malaysia. He also earned an Earth Watch grant to the rainforest of Ecuador, to study climate change and caterpillars. He continues to love travel and has taken students all over the world to places like The South Pacific, China and all over Europe where he will JUST returned with his students this last June 2018! He has been to over 105 countries and had visited all 50 states. He will take the Model United Nations students to New York this November. He loves to visit New York City, London, Paris and Amsterdam the most, but has a soft spot for Machu Picchu, Iceland and Easter Island. His current hobbies include practicing Yoga, taking Ballet, vegan cooking, travel, politics, activism for many causes, reading, concerts/shows/plays, watching reality TV, as well as fostering his “addictions” collecting music from Radiohead (Wow! He got to meet them last summer for they were on his plane home from abroad) to anything 80’s, to championing his obsession with Ai Wei Wei & Keith Haring’s artworks. His favorite films are Get Out, Forks Over Knives, Evil Dead II, Wings of Desire, Dancer in the Dark, Tarnation and Pedro Almodovar's, High Heels. He loves to read authors of health, philosophy, education and fiction like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, Jonathan Kosol, Dr. Michael Gregor, Kurt Vonnegut, Lao Tzu, Albert Camus, Leo Tolstoy, DH Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Michele Foucault and Jean Rhys. He STILL believes his students are all~WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL HUMANS!!! He wants you to have a fabulous 2018-2019 school year and soak up the intense growth.

Sites about his pilgrimage around the world:
http://teeksaphoto.org/Archive/Exhibits/95PilgrF/AshesLightPDFs/00Cover_Contents_Foreword.pdf
http://fqa.quaker.org/types/t02-endwar.html