Jackie Cross, a new math teacher on campus is really excited for the new school year. She formerly taught algebra, geometry, and eighth grade math at Hillcrest Middle School for eight years. Hillcrest alumni agree that she is a great teacher and she makes math class fun. A quick Q and A revealed that she is indeed a very open and friendly person who is excited to begin educating.
Question: What subject is your favorite to teach?
Answer: Probably algebra and geometry. That’s why I moved here.
Q: What do you like best about OHS?
A: So far the teachers, my coworkers, I really love everybody in my math department. Everyone’s been so helpful, administration and everybody in the front office. Everybody’s been so welcoming and it’s really nice. They’ve made it very easy.
Q: What are your plans for this year?
A: Just to take it easy, not jump into a whole lot of things. I want to get a good foundation of what I’m teaching this year and hopefully I’d like to get involved more outside of the classroom. Maybe some clubs or sports or something like that. I coached spiritline for a long time so if a position opens up I’d like to do some of that too.
Q: What are you most excited for?
A: I’m really excited for my first high school football game next week. All the sports, the whole team that goes with the high school and I’m really excited about being a part of that.
Q: Why do you like teaching?
A: I love math and I love teaching it. Math is something that’s real scary for some students and people have phobias and I like trying to make it understandable and easier and not so scary.
Q: How do you do that?
A: I’m a really good cheerleader when it comes to cheering people on and being supportive. I’m kind of a behind the scenes, pump people up [person]. They think that they can’t do it and I want to give them more self esteem to do things. Boosting kids self esteem is really important because they come in with a poor self-esteem, about math in particular. But I love working with kids and students. I can’t see myself doing anything else.