This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Matthias Wasser is a long-term substitute for English teacher Julia Rocco and will also be working as a paraprofessional. He enjoys reading, spending time with his toddlers and playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
What’s your profession?
I’m a long-term sub for the next month-ish for Julia Rocco in English and then, later on, it’ll be for Hayley Wells. Then, I’ll be working as a paraprofessional.
Where did you go to college? High school?
I went to high school at an all-boys Catholic school in Philadelphia, which I attribute any personality defects to. I went to the University of Maryland, College Park, for undergrad, and then my PhD, and then went to Tufts during the pandemic years for my teaching degree.
How do you think going to a Catholic school has affected your desire to teach?
I never realized I wanted to teach until way later. I went to grad school for sociology because I just found it inherently interesting. And then if you’re going for the doctorate, then you get teaching assignments and you TA, because that’s how you pay your way through. But I liked it. And then through tutoring and subbing, I realized I worked better with younger kids than I had thought, and that’s how I got into [teaching] high school.
What are some good ideas you’ve heard from your freshmen and students so far?
There’s the poem [in The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo] where she [the main character Xiomara] compares herself to Medusa. And in the class, we just didn’t really explain all that much about the context of the myth. We said, “Oh, you know Medusa turns people to stone.” And I was talking with a student about the poem, and I mentioned offhand the capsule summary of the myth. I think most of the versions of myth are more frank in terms of the sexual violence there. She’s cursed for being raped, essentially. And this student instantly makes the connection. And so I was like, “Oh, why did I not even notice that?” I think students are just continually impressing you. I was very impressed with just how disciplined everyone was in English classes.
Do you have any hobbies outside of school?
I like reading and playing D&D. In fact, I would say that being a Dungeon Master is probably a lot better training for being a teacher than teaching colleges. You have a bunch of people who are being guided through an experience and the goal is to, with the limited amount of time you have, have them engaging with a bunch of material that you’ve been thinking about during the previous week or previous day. It’s about pacing, spotlight management and presenting things in an exciting way and getting people interacting.
