New teachers enter mid-year
November 8, 2017
Although the first semester of the school year is drawing to a close, Diamond Bar High School is still welcoming new teachers. Choir director Anastasia Glasheen and biology teacher Diana Wai have joined the Brahma family within the last few weeks.
Glasheen, who began playing the piano when she was three years old, has known that she wanted to be a music teacher since she was five. She was involved with her high school’s choir and also sang at Potsdam College in New York state, where she was a piano major.
Over the course of her career, she has performed as a singer all over the world. While she was involved with the Broadway touring company of “The Buddy Holly Story,” she performed for President George H.W. Bush at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She also performed with multiple Broadway touring companies around the country.
Her first teaching job was in an East Hampton high school in New York in 1984. In 2005, she moved to California where she began teaching at various colleges and universities, including USC. This is her first time directing a high school choir in ten years.
“I hope to continue the tradition of an award winning show choir,” she said. “I’d like to create new traditions with the students, some of which is expanding a more classical repertoire, adding the orchestra to have a big, huge community.”
In addition, Glasheen hopes to be involved with the musical in the spring due to her experience in musical theater. She also plans to introduce a new classical choir, which will compete in similar shows as the show choir.
Wai is replacing Christopher Holmes in the biology department, and teaches both AP and regular biology.
This is Wai’s second teaching job. She first taught at Alliance Morgan Mckinzie High School in east Los Angeles. There, she taught life sciences, including biology, medical science and AP biology.
Wai, who was born in Ecuador, came to the U.S. for college. She graduated from UCLA in 2011 with a major in bioengineering and a minor in Spanish. She was involved in animal research throughout and after college, researching topics like metabolism, cardiology and obesity. She worked at a veterinary clinic after graduating, as she intended to be a veterinarian, but later realized she wanted to get into teaching.
“Along the way, I realized that I really liked sciences,” she said. “I also liked working with youth. If you’re really excited about something, you really like sharing it. It’s like a good movie—you tell your friends about it.”
