This article was written by Angela Lin, class of 2019.
Not many people have the opportunity to teach during their school years. At Heritage, math competition students have the opportunity to hold a position as a student teacher. These students often place first at competitions and demonstrate their math skills on local, state and national levels. This year the student teachers are freshman Vlad Oleysenko, sophomore Max Ranis, junior Jackson Blitz and seniors Matthew Robbins, Ryan Broder, Aaron Ben-Shalom, Ashley Westerfield, Jared Shulkin and Ryan Galvankar. They either teach a class on their own or together. Classes take place after school Tuesday, Friday and Saturday every week.
These students have a lot of the same responsibilities as any school teacher. They create weekly lesson plans that include topics to be covered, practice problems and a homework assignment. Some student teachers take the time to create anywhere from a single sheet to a multi page guidebook. In the classes, they give lectures and students participate in solving practice problems. In addition, student teachers prepare quizzes every week that are monitored by math competition instructor Mr. Richard Rovere.
“I am fortunate enough to teach a group of incoming freshman for the upcoming Mu Alpha Theta competitions. I am currently teaching the geometry competition class with Jackson Blitz. It’s really great to be able to teach them new things outside the classroom,” said senior Matthew Robbins.
Classroom management issues and instructional strategies are not uncommon in discussions between student teachers and Mr. Rovere.
“Each of the instructors are deeply committed and invested in their classes and their students’ success in math competition,” said Mr. Rovere. “It is my sincere belief that our program would not be as successful as it is without the hard work and dedication of our amazing student instructors.”
