Brandon Walker

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Purdue University
Master of Arts, Child Psychology, University of Detroit - Mercy
 

Q & A with BRANDON

What are your top five CliftonStrengths, and which ONE do you find yourself leaning into the most these days?
Learner, Input, Focus, Analytical, and Discipline. With three kids, my new role, and graduate school, I would be a wayward soul without the strength of focus. I like to think of my time as a pie chart where too much in one area means a reduction in another. While I am grateful for every opportunity God has afforded me, I am learning to safeguard that time to focus on the things that matter.

What’s your favorite part of the PS Mission ("Family, School and Church united in the education and support of each Child") and why?
The phrase “support of each child” is something that I always come back to. That phrase is powerful in guiding what we do to reach all students beyond reading, writing, and Algebra. Built into the phase is the expectation that we will proactively find ways to support a student’s needs. A primary reason I am in education is that I love encouraging and sewing into kids to help them see their best version of themselves. This part of our mission calls for us to proactively seek ways to do just that. 

What was your best academic subject when you were in elementary school? 
I have always enjoyed reading, but my true love is logical arguments and reasoning. The first time I felt the near euphoria of making a compelling, logically sound argument was in an analytical writing class. It was to the brain what sports had always been for my body. Later, when I took my first statistics class, I realized that you could use numbers to make similar compelling arguments. That was the moment I fell in love with math. 

What’s your go-to comfort food?  
I am coming up on ten years of living in Texas. The day I learned of an HEB Prime 1 steak was when my life changed for the better. Literally, nothing beats an HEB steak on the grill. 

What’s your motto?
A phrase that has been really helpful lately is the Latin phrase “memento mori,” which means remember that you must die. That sounds dark, but it is a useful reminder that our days are not guaranteed, so we should live accordingly. It helps me focus on the people, relationships, and work that is meaningful to me and try to approach each day as the gift that it is.

What’s your favorite musical group and song? 
I love music too much to pick just one, but Dru Hill’s Beauty is one that my wife and I danced to in 9th grade. I was certain she was the one then, and nearly twenty-five years and three kids later, we are still going strong. So, that song has a lot of sentiment attached to it.

What’s an obsession you have and don’t understand?
I love trying to improve or optimize systems. I can spend A LOT of time finding “the best” solution to a problem. It's a quirk that if something is not logically sound, I have difficulty with it, so I like to tweak things until they can stand up to logical scrutiny.