About Mrs. Miller

My name is Barbie Miller, and this is my eighth year teaching at Faithful Shepherd. I was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and came to Minnesota in 1994. I live in Eagan with my husband Todd, daughter Katie, and two dogs, Dasher and Luna.

I have degrees in math, education, and computer programming. I taught 11^th and 12th-grade math in Johannesburg for seven years, then returned to university to study computers. I was a programmer for four years before coming to Minnesota to work on upgrading computer systems in anticipation of Y2K. I arrived in May of 1994 and had a wonderful summer. Winter arrived in early November and I questioned my sanity! The temperature gauges in Johannesburg do not often fall below 58 degrees. However, the kindness and warmth of the people here made up for the blinding cold and snow. I stayed.

I met my husband at work, and we married in 1999. Our daughter was born in 2004 and I became a stay-at-home mom.  I homeschooled Katie from 2009 through 2015 and tutored math on the side. I joined the FSCS staff in the fall of 2016.

I have been involved with the Minnesota Council of the Gifted and Talented for many years and belonged to their homeschool chapter for six years. I know that my time homeschooling and involvement with the large homeschooling community in the metro helped me to become a better teacher and taught me how to challenge my students.

I shall be teaching accelerated Pre-Algebra to 6th graders, accelerated Algebra to 7^th graders, and accelerated Geometry to 8^th graders. I have two additional classes this year – AdvancedPlus Pre-Algebra for 7th graders and AdvancedPlus Algebra for 8th graders.

Ed Zaccaro has said that “Math is often taught as all scales and no music.”  We will be practicing a lot of scales in my math classroom, but I hope to also make much music.