WRITTEN BY KYLE ABADILLA, RIELLE CHLOE CANLAS, and JILL LUNA
This past school year, VAAS has gained many new members of the community. One that has joined us is a history teacher, Mr. Sin. Mr. Sin shared his experiences about how his first semester has been. He said, “My first semester to be honest was pretty tough, not because of the school or the students or anything—This is my first year teaching high school and then first year with new subjects like AP World, and I want to make sure they do well on the tests. So, it's been a lot of pressure.” With that, he also mentioned what he enjoys most about the VAAS community. He said, “I like that it's very chill where …we do give tests. [In] the classroom, we focus on academics but yet we still understand that testing is not everything and we try to give a lot of projects…the culture here with the students and the staff is like a family.” Later in the interview, we asked about his biggest strengths in teaching, to which he said, “My biggest strength, I would say, comes from me knowing I struggled when I was in high school. So, I understand how it feels not to understand in the classroom. So, I try to always put myself in the seats of the students and see how better I can understand something. …For the students, I try to reach out to everyone [with] what I'm interested in, make it relatable, those kinds of things. I think that would be my strength.” His strengths in teaching also intertwine with his teaching style. When asked about his style of teaching, he said, “I guess it depends on the class. For AP classes, we take a lot of notes. We do a lot of work, as in writing SAQs (short answer questions). We actually take tests and quizzes, and we have a lot of writing to do. I like to do more …projects, hands on stuff, where you’re not just seeing me up in the front of the class the whole time teaching you, but you’re learning through yourself, …through projects, and through things you are doing, not just what I'm doing…” Lastly, previous to his teachings at VAAS, Mr. Sin has taught in different schools. When asked, he mentioned, “I've taught at a few different schools. The first teaching experience I had was at a private Christian school and that was like a K-12 school and then I taught at a middle school for about 6 years which was definitely different. I love it way more here in high school just because of the maturity level. So I've taught at a Christian private school for about 2 years and then at a middle school for 6 years and now I'm here.” Overall, we’re very happy to have Mr. Sin in our VAAS community and we wish him the best of luck in his future teaching experiences! WRITTEN BY JILL LUNA
Matthew McMillin is one of our beloved teachers here at VAAS. Mr. McMillin shares the origins of his teaching style, his perspective on the state of VAAS, plans for the future, and thoughts on past decisions based on an interview conducted by Michael McKnight. When asked about how his teaching style came to be, Mr. McMillin stated, “I feel like I borrow so much from everybody that I’ve ever worked with. I originally student-taught with Mr. Harris (one of VAAS's founders and current English teachers), that was eight or nine years ago. …Harris influenced…how I…have class discussions a lot. I took a lot of information from him. The next teacher that…that I student-taught for was …really creative about how they did projects and how they set up their classroom. They were moving their chairs around everyday and they would constantly have the kids move the desks and stuff, and I’ve adopted that too. So, I love moving my room around and that’s just something that I borrowed.” Our interviewer, Michael, asked Mr. McMillin his opinion on the current state of our school, to which he said, “I think the school [is] doing well. In a lot of ways. It was hard coming back from Covid, and I think everybody’s still feeling that. I think there’s a lot of students and a lot of staff that still are…kind of shaky on it. …I was going through some of my older stuff from 2017, 2016, 2015, teaching things from back then, and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, I used to do this.’ I forgot what that was like, part of my class and my normal stuff. So, I think that’s a big thing …we’re all kind of coming back from(Covid), but I think overall we’re all doing really well.” Now addressing the issue of graffiti tagging at the school, Mr. McMillin shared his thoughts by saying, “…Tagging is an interesting thing, because in so many ways, art is supposed to be accepted, supposed to be something everybody gets to experience, but then it becomes intrusive, and that’s hard to balance. I think it’s hard to teach students to balance it. It’s really hard to tell students ‘Hey, stop painting.’. …It’s like telling students to stop writing. It’s like it’s a skill that you should be practicing and yet, here they are, not able to do it, and it’s a weird balance. It’s a weird structure. I think it just comes down to like property… This isn’t yours, so you can’t use it that way.” When asked how other schools compare to VAAS, Mr. McMillin answered, “...I really got to experience what really makes this school unique. As far as how they approach everything, I think there’s a different level of freedom for students to kind of explore whatever they want to. There is a little more leniency as far as…trust in students being able to be more mature and more interpersonal, …communication with each other and with teachers. …I think it’s a really unique way that everybody does things here. You look at other schools and what’s making them more successful now, is that they’re adapting to all the stuff that made us really good in the first place. So when I was here a long time ago, it was pretty unique to have an iPad in your hand and be able to work with that. That wasn’t something you saw. Now every school has that or is trying to have that, and trying to make it work. We’re kind of ahead of the curve that way, and I think we have been for a long time. I like being here because of that.” Afterward, our interviewer Michael asked Mr. McMillin what his plans were for the future, to which he said, “...keep teaching, keep working. I enjoy this job. …I enjoy teaching. I set out into this career originally thinking that if there was a point where I ever didn’t like the students, I was gonna leave, 'cause …I had teachers that really didn’t like students growing up and they hurt students because of it. I never wanted to be that teacher. I knew that, as I’m in this career, if I burn out or at some point really hate what I’m doing, I’m not gonna do it anymore. I’m gonna try to find something else, ‘cause I don’t want to be that person that is gonna injure students’ futures because of my behavior, and I think that that’s kind of where I am. …I enjoy it and I’m willing to do it.” Lastly, Mr. McMillin was asked if he were to change a past decision, what would it be and why. He answered, “A lot of decisions that I don’t like, I don’t think that I would change anything because I think that’s kind of what brought me where I am. I’m not necessarily a big believer in faith. I don’t think that people …have a course that they’re set on. I think that your individual small decisions actually really matter a lot more than big ones. …I don’t necessarily have anything that I would wanna go back and change because it brought me here, and I really like my life now. I wouldn’t risk losing that.” WRITTEN BY: AIDEN ORANTES
Creative Writing Club usually meets at lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays, and is usually held in Room 315, with the sponsor Mx. Aiden Brown. They always give each member advice with whatever they may be writing about, from sci-fi, reality fiction, and more. Speaking of the sponsor, I had the chance to ask them some questions about the Creative Writing Club. When asked of the purpose of the Creative Writing Club, Mx. Brown answered, "The purpose of Creative Writing Club is to give writers a place to gather, to write ongoing stories, start new stories, and think and talk about writing with other people who are interested in it.” Mx.Brown, who's pronouns are they/them, had their own motivations for starting and giving the students on campus access to this club. ”As you know (as a member), I have been a creative writer, with the novel I’m working on, I’ve had the story in my mind since I was 11, and having folks to share writing with has been instrumental in my life, as have stories and the telling of them, and I love that I get to facilitate a space like that for you guys." However, Mx. Brown didn’t start this club on their own. VAAS students had a hand in the birth of this club. They said, ”I believe it was Achillies Ordoña and Nova Garner, though something tells me Avery Nored was with them. I remember not even letting them finish their sentence because I was so excited to sponsor it. When I first got hired at VAAS, that was the first thing I wanted to do, either a class, a club, or a writing center of some sort.” Being a part of such a special club and surrounded by creative Vipers, Mx. Brown has the opportunity to make wonderful memories. When asked what was their favorite memory from being the sponsor of creative writing, Mx. Brown responded, ”Oh my goodness, that is a tough one…I think during National Novel Writing Month, when we did the cabin challenge, that was really fun.” The cabin challenge for NaNoWriMo is when students are split into 3 separate cabins (Horror, Mystery, and Romance), and they compete against each other to get the most points. Anything they write during this period gets them points. During this cabin challenge, the club ran a special event inspired by NaNoWriMo with a twist. As Mx. Brown stated, ”It was Achilles' idea, but essentially they extended the (cabin) challenge to be all writing…So, we tallied our total word count for the month, we counted anything from personal writing to academic writing. It could be on paper or pencil. The students within the club were split into three cabins…The points were tallied up from each work that the student made, and whichever cabin won would get a prize.” WRITTEN BY HEIDI ROCHA-MORAN
Ms. Rennels, who started last year, is one of VAAS’ newer teachers. Ms Rennels attend the college of CSUN. She stated, “I was older going there so I saw a lot of young people” and “It’s a nice campus, the professors were really nice too”. Ms. Rennels teaches Spanish 2, Spanish 3, and Advisory. Ms. Rennels biggest struggle was teaching kids coming back from the pandemic last year. She said she faced this struggle by, “trying to do more lessons that were fun”. Ms. Rennels loves everything about this school. She stated, “There is a level of kindness in this school that I haven’t seen necessarily in other schools”. WRITTEN BY: DYLAN ANDERSON
Mr. San Jose is currently one of our P.E. teachers, the assistant athletic director, and the head coach for boys basketball. During an interview, I was able to get lots of information on his thoughts and opinions about his time as a P.E teacher. Mr. San Jose stated, “My time here at VAAS as a P.E teacher has been a dream and the students and staff here are all amazing people”. He then went on to state that he, "...couldn’t have asked for a better situation". Unbeknownst to him a better situation came along when he became the boys basketball head coach. Mr. San Jose mentioned that he, "loves basketball so this doesn’t necessarily feel like work to him". He proceeded to explain the importance and high expectations of his responsibilities and how he manages them through not overthinking and not letting things lead him toward panic. Furthermore, when asked about the current basketball season he mentioned that he was very excited and has high hopes for the team. He then went on to talk about how he wants his players to succeed and that winning isn’t everything. Overall he is looking for the team to be competitive and ready to compete no matter the opponent. Lastly, when it comes to having three different positions at VAAS, he mentioned he will always try his best in anything he does. With so many responsibilities, Mr. San Jose also stated, “I agreed to do this, so I wouldn't agree if I knew I couldn't handle it." This shows the determination and hard work that he puts in daily. He also stated he’s able to do these things due to the support he receives from other staff members at VAAS who he couldn't work without. |
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