Leah Moore, more commonly known to students as LM, has been teaching English at Deerfield for three years. She arrived as a ‘Penn fellow’ through a program at the University of Pennsylvania, which granted her the opportunity to experience teaching at a boarding school while also getting her master’s degree. She was a dorm resident on Johnson 3, coached Girls’ Varsity Basketball and Girls’ Varsity Track and Field, and was a co-advisor for Deerfield Women of Color (DWOC).
Her favorite parts of teaching at Deerfield were helping eager students “dive into nuances of language and of stories” and being able to “have more autonomy in the classroom and teach things that speak to [her].” In addition, as a dorm resident in Johnson, she enjoyed being able to “see students interact in authentic ways with each other,” an aspect that she noted is a “powerful part of working at a boarding school in general.”
Jeanlukas Meza ’26 said, “[Ms. Moore has] supported me through thick and thin and taught me how to analyze stories better and connect them to the real world.” Meza added that he was always “encouraged to speak up” and has become a “better thinker of the world around [him].”
Ms. Moore offered some parting wisdom to Deerfield students: “It is really important to be your authentic self, even though it’s really hard to do that.” She recognized that many people “perform” for the world and said that we should try to be more “genuinely caring.” She hopes that students will “lean into things that [they’re] not always sure about” and realize that it is “not bad to make mistakes and be willing to fall.”
Ms. Moore will be moving to Claremont, California, where she will teach at the Webb Schools.