By: Lilly (7th Grade)

Hello my name is Lilly, I am in the 7th grade, and I interviewed two of my favorite teachers both named Mr. Stevens/Stephens for the Newspaper club. They both are very interactive and helpful. One of my favorite traits that they posses is that they have the ability to keep me engaged in the things we are learning.

Lilly: How many years have you been in Nysmith?

Mr. Stevens: 13 years

Mr. Stephens: 21 years

Lilly: How many classes do you teach?

Mr. Stevens: This year, two 7th grade Language Arts 7B&7C, one math class, P.E and then I co teach a course two math class.

Mr. Stephens: I teach four classes this year; two 7th grade Language Arts 7A&7D, 7th grade geometry and sixth grade mechanics.

Lilly: What do you like most about teaching?

Mr. Stevens: I like breaking down paradigms in young people and forcing them to have more questions than answers.

Mr. Stephens: I love the students, it’s interesting to learn from them every day.

Lilly: What’s the difference you’ve seen between all these classes that come and go, for example seventh grade?

Mr. Stevens: I do notice differences between the years; yours in particular is very keen and has a lot of elacerty when I ask that you shift your understanding of the paradigmes that you may have already. Easy to say forget what I think I know and asking questions.

Mr. Stephens: Every group is different but it’s really fun to watch them grow. Like in previous years I used to teach eighth grade geometry so I would teach a lot of kids in seventh grade Language Arts and the following year in geometry I would get to teach them again and I saw them a year older, that was very interesting.

Lilly: Which class do you like best teaching?

Mr. Stevens: It have to say Language Arts because we do a lot of neat stuff and it isn’t just reading and writing it’s a little bit of philosophy, a little bit of history, it’s kind of all incomposing.

Mr. Stephens: I really like teaching all the classes, I enjoy Language Arts for all the books we read and the litreaters were fun; but I also enjoy the intellectual challenge in teaching geometry. I don’t really have a favorite, whichever I’m teaching at that time is my favorite.

I enjoyed interviewing Mr. Stevens/Stephens. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on my questions and to see the different answers two Language Arts teachers give.