I just completed his 36th year as a professional educator, being a fourth generation teacher was something he knew he wanted to be since he was 10 years old.

 

Originally from San Diego, I taught History and Humanities in Los Angeles for 18 years in public and private college prep schools.  Since moving back to San Diego in 2006, I have been teaching AP History at Canyon Crest Academy, a public school dedicated to the Arts and Sciences, and is a Coordinator of The Envision Conservatory for the Humanities. The Conservatory, a three-year, student-created, project-based, after-school program – committed to deepening students’ mastery of the Humanities. One of the projects, a comic book about a hummingbird that migrates to Panama, brought me to the San Diego International Sister Cities Association.

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Through the efforts of SanDISCA and SCI in 2015, San Diego become a Sister City with the City of Panama. From that relationship, my students have collaborated with three schools in Panama. Another separate Humanities project, Aquascope has “ambassadors” in eleven countries on every continent but Antarctica, providing after-school STEM curriculum.

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Since 2018, I have been working with the City of Tijuana, Mexico organizing the San Diego-Tijuana Sister Cities All Star Youth Soccer Tournament or Balboa Cup.  Games were played on both sides of the border and enable both cities to show off the best of their young athletes. I am on the Executive Secretary for the Board of Directors of the San Diego International Sister Cities Association, and the President of the San Diego-Panama Sister City Society, a member of the World Affairs Council of San Diego and San Diego Diplomacy Council and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and Commerce.

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In 2021, introduced by Bart Ziegler of the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the Mawoud Learning Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. Since then, my students interact with the students in Kabul on a regular basis over Zoom and other platforms. 

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After August of 2021, we began to raise money to keep the school open. We raised so much money that I had to create my own 501c3, the Eileen Murphy Foundation. The Eileen Murphy Foundation is dedicated to connecting students to students where girls' education is threatened. www.eileenmurphyfoundation.org 

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My students started a subsidiary club of Eileen Murphy Foundation called Flowers for the Future. They have expanded to include chapters in Hong Kong and outside Boston. All three groups send curriculum and conduct synchronous and asynchronous labs and lessons for the girls in Afghanistan.