Head of School Josiah Wagoner is a career educator with a wealth of experience in a broad range of educational settings, from elementary school to university. He earned a Master of Arts in Reading Literacy from Ashford University and two Bachelor degrees from Cornell College, one in Elementary Education and another in Sociology. Mr. Wagoner spent several years in Asia instructing scholars across all grade levels in Korea, Japan, and Thailand.
Mr. Wagoner has experience as a Professor of Education, an educational administrator, and as an elementary school teacher. Outside the school building, he was a senior project manager in the educational publishing industry, creating English Language Arts textbooks for the Middle Eastern and Asian markets. He is also an accomplished public speaker, crowned the Korean National Champion of Public Speaking in 2012.
In these roles and throughout his education and career as an educator, Mr. Wagoner has always focused on elementary learning and development. As a Professor of Education, Mr. Wagoner nurtured the young careers of future teachers, training them to implement the latest educational best practices. As the Associate Head of School and Director of the Primary Program at BASIS Independent Fremont, he became known as an empathetic administrator who always puts the needs of students first. As a Dean of Students and LET, Mr. Wagoner displayed exemplary qualities of working with young students to engage and connect students to their academics and guide them in good decision-making.
In addition to his experiences inside the classroom, Mr. Wagoner is a well-practiced educational content creator as the co-author of Powerful Presentations: 6 Steps to Success and Foundations of Education for Mokwon University. He is also a contributing writer and editor for multiple language arts textbooks for young learners. These experiences taught him about the myriad of available resources to meet the diverse needs of learners.
“My strength is in helping students to reflect on how they can and should make good choices to become good members of our community and good citizens of the wider world,” says Mr. Wagoner. “That is what we’re doing here, after all: helping kids grow into responsible adults.”
When he’s not on campus, Mr. Wagoner loves spending time playing board games, reading a good book, or improving his physical and mental health with yoga. His favorite books are science fiction and fantasy because “books have the power to take us to amazing places that can exist only in our minds.”
