Kevin Wang

New English teacher Kevin Wang moved from Brookfield, CT where he previously taught. During his free time, Wang enjoys hiking. Wang said that he is excited to bring his personality into the classroom. 

What are the morals and values that you look for?

I like simple rules. So something that I usually say a lot is just, “Don’t be a jerk,” but you can simplify that to “Be nice to everyone.” Generally you will hear me say a lot, just don’t be a jerk. It’s really easy not to be one. So I try to emphasize that. I want myself and everyone else to just be nice to everyone and just to treat everyone with respect.

What are you excited for this school year?

I like the size of this school. I worked at a really small school before, so the amount of kids here is pretty exciting. For some people I think it may be intimidating, but I think it’s exciting. I also like the diversity which is super, super exciting for me.

Are you excited to introduce new ways of teaching, if you have any?

Yes! I haven’t really thought of myself as having a different teaching style. I bring my personality into the classroom and hopefully people are receptive to that. If not, you know－that’s how life works.

And why did you get into this teaching career? Why would you want to teach English particularly?

It sort of just happened. I was in college, and I started tutoring kids in writing. I enjoyed tutoring, so I kind of wanted to know what teaching was like. I really liked what English was like and it kind of progressed from there. I also remembered my English teachers the most from high school. So I guess you could say that they made an influential impact? I just remember them being very nice people so that sort of altered my perception of English and created my perception of teaching.

Do you think grades are important enough to affect everything in life?

I personally think it depends on the type of person you are. I don’t mean to cast any stones with this statement, but I think if a person places value on a grade, it is clearly important to them and if that’s what they find value in , it will affect them later in life, now and later. Ideally, they go to college, and college has grades as well, so they attach their value or their beliefs or whatever you would want to call it to getting good grades so it’s going to affect them. But I would say in the grand scheme of things I don’t remember the grades, the numerical grades, in high school. I could tell you I got B’s and C’s and occasionally A’s, but I know sometimes you don’t do well on a test and get it back, and it’s like the worst thing ever, I felt that too. And then, you know, time goes by. So, overall I don’t think grades matter too much.