Our Team
Jon Bassett - Founding Partner
Jon Bassett wanted to be a history teacher ever since he was in middle school. He began his career at a Catholic girls high school in the South Bronx (Saint Pius V), then spent over twenty years in the Boston suburbs, at Dover-Sherborn Regional High School and Newton North High School, where he served as chair of the history department and helped found the Newton Teacher Residency. In 2018 Jon returned to urban classrooms, and taught world history at the Match Charter Public High School in Boston from 2019 to 2024. Jon has taught students in grades nine through twelve and on every academic level, and has won three teaching awards. He has a B.A. in history from Columbia, an M.A.T. in history teaching from Brown, and an Ed.D. in curriculum and teaching from Boston University.
Renee Blackmon - Curriculum Writer
Renee Blackmon started her educator journey when she returned to the University of Texas to
earn a teaching certificate while working as an Austin police officer. Her classroom experience
started at Hays High School in Buda, Texas where she taught world history, economics,
government, street law, and journalism. From there she moved to Round Rock ISD, a suburban
district north of Austin, where she was instrumental in getting AP World History offered in the
district. Renee went on to serve as an instructional coach and later as a program manager with
a statewide curriculum team. She has been active in the social studies community for over thirty
years and is a past president of the Texas Council for the Social Studies. She has a BSW from
the University of Texas at Austin and an M. Ed. from Concordia University.
Gary Shiffman - Founding Partner
Gary Shiffman became a high school teacher at age 39. That summer he interned at Madison Park High School in Boston. In the fall, he began teaching 9th and 10th graders at Newton North High School, where Jon Bassett had hired him on a lark. He taught at Newton North for four years and then became Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator (a.k.a. department chair) at Brookline High School, where his two daughters, his wife (Class of ’80), and his friend Jon (Class of ’84) all attended. After seventeen years in that position, he stepped down to devote himself full time to spreading the word about the Four Question Method. Gary has a B.A. in Political Science from SUNY Binghamton, a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and is a former Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.