Can learning math and science tickle your funny bone?
For the students in Shari Vanderpool’s sixth-grade class at
Marguerite Maze Middle School in Hollister, laughing out loud and
seeing the humor in their teacher’s eyes is all part of the average
school day.
Can learning math and science tickle your funny bone?
For the students in Shari Vanderpool’s sixth-grade class at Marguerite Maze Middle School in Hollister, laughing out loud and seeing the humor in their teacher’s eyes is all part of the average school day.
“I want my students to want to come to school and to be happy,” Vanderpool said. “Humor is the number one thing. I sing familiar songs and change the lyrics to teach a particular lesson. I’m very theatrical; I’m always making a point by saying “Ta Dum!”
Shari Vanderpool feels humor is a way of keeping the students engaged. She also relates the curriculum to real world situations.
“Today in science we did an experiment with Alka-Seltzer, we looked at the white corrosion, and I told them to look for the same thing around their faucets at home,” she said. “How well they try is the important thing. One of my students told me that I had helped the class pay attention. They are interested, and I do instill in them that the responsibility to learn is in them, not me.”
Vanderpool teaches math, science and childrens literature. She also coaches Volleyball, tutors in the homework club and runs the after-school Club Live program, a very popular program fashioned on the comedy styling of Saturday Night Live. Her job is much more than a nine to five commitment; and she loves every minute of it.
“She really gives 200 percent not only as a teacher but as a person,” said her principal, Bernice Smith. “Her passion for teaching inspires the students and the staff. Any school would be lucky to have her.”
Vanderpool has been teaching for 15 years. She was a math major at Cal State Hayward and had leaned toward being an accountant. But it was experience tutoring second-graders while she was in sixth-grade and being a professors’ aid in college that swayed her.
“I need to be a teacher,” she said. “I couldn’t ignore my destiny.”
She came to Maze Middle School in 1997 because she wanted to live close to the ocean and near the hills. She liked Hollister and felt Maze was one of the best interviews she had had. She was assigned to a grade-six class, an age that she enjoys teaching.
“I remember Junior High, and I like that age range. The students are old enough to reason but still have that sense of innocence.”
Vanderpool started out teaching literature at Maze, but when an opening came up for a math and science position she wanted to take on the challenge.
“I’m a multi-subject teacher, and because I had taken math in college I thought I’d be good at it. I want what is best for the kids. Math is really hard stuff in the sixth grade. But I incorporate singing and show them how wonderful it is to be able to do an algebra problem three ways and still get the same answer.”
Math and science are core subjects within the curriculum and the test results carry a lot of weight for the students, as well as the school. Vanderpool doesn’t like how important test are. She explains her views on testing by relating a story from one of Dr. Seuss’ books, called “Hooray for Diffendoofer Day.”
When Theodor Seuss Geisel died in 1991, he left behind an unfinished manuscript about a teacher he named Miss Bonkers, a teacher who celebrates the individuality and creative thinking of her students in the face of nail-biting tests.
“The kids in the story were afraid of taking tests, and they were told if they didn’t do well the school would close,” Vanderpool explained. “So the teacher taught them in a fun way and the students internalized the material and were able to interpret it for themselves, and when the tests came they were having so much fun learning that they passed with ease.”
