If you have algebra 2 you probably know Mr. Schacht. He’s a very well known like-able teacher who does a good job keeping students engaged even though it’s math. Mr. Schacht’s classes are never boring with his goofy personality and energy he brings to the class but uses it in a way to keep kids focused on him while he teaches. A lot of his students like him but not a lot of them actually know too much about him, I decided to interview him and get an insight on his opinion on teaching as well as find out more about him.

Why did you start teaching?

“I tutored in the past when I was in high school ands when I was in college I was always the kid people would go up to for help in math class, I had a mechanic and egineering major but I decided not to go for that anymore because it was too much work, and then the next thing that fit into my degree path was math and education so I tried it and once I did my internship I kind of fell in love with it I didn’t stop.”

What’s one thing you like about teaching and one thing you dislike?

“One thing I Really like is the students that are super interested in the math and kind of share the passion that I got, but than I also have the students that don’t really care or take difficult classes than don’t show up and thats just hard, but they probably juts have other things going on in there life or have priorities so I don’t take it personal or anything but it is just a little hard.” What is your teaching philosophy? “I think anybody can learn anything, in fact I don’t even think its truly dependent on a teacher I think that anyone can learn anything from anyone as long as there motivated enough to learn.”

What are some methods you use to check for understanding as you teach?

“I try to do a few different things the biggest one is obviously the tests at the end of two weeks that shows me what you know from those two weeks, than during class I asl people to do the problem for me to make sure people know what to do and aren’t just copying what I’m writing on the board, and than the last thing on review days I walk around looking at your work and answering questions.

Describe a troubling student you’ve taught and explain how you got them to turn there grade around?

“I had a student who had learning disabilities but wanted to go to the marines and he had to pass my class to graduate high school and get to the marines, he struggled a lot but what I did to help him was really connect with him and talk about his life to build a relationship and get him to think of me as a friend who wants to help him learn other than just some teacher, he would go to my tutoring after school every Tuesday and Thursday and he would go on to pass my class and graduate high school.”

Use three words to describe the energy you bring to the classroom? “Weird, funny, and passionate.”