2 minute read
Teacher SpoTlighT : “M aThTiMe” wiTh K elly M ay
from The Bolt
By Riley Robinson
Kelly May has been teaching at Sage Hill for 13 years. She currently teaches Precalculus and Accelerated Precalculus. She’s previously taught Algebra and AP Calculus.
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May attended Chapman University on a presidential scholarship where she played soccer and majored in physical therapy, a profession she believed she would end up pursuing. However, after spending many hours in training rooms and tending to many injuries, she began to rethink her future career choices and started to pursue teaching.
She transferred to California State University Long Beach after switching majors where she took high level math courses and graduated. The person who greatly inspired her to pursue what she loved while making math fun was her Precalculus and AP Calculus teacher, Mr. Cal. He incorporated competitions and games during classes to keep the students interested and competitive while forming relationships with their peers.
“Math in high school was always so much fun…It was like solving a puzzle,‘’ May said.
She had already started “teaching” during her middle school years when her friends would struggle with math problems and she would personally help them to understand the material better.
On the same day she resigned from her job at her previous school, May found out that Sage Hill was looking for a part-time math teacher.
After attending some interviews and sharing demos with classes, it was clear May would have an extraordinary effect on the Sage Hill community.
May says that her favorite thing to teach her Precalculus classes is trigonometry because it continues throughout the whole year, but truly, every unit is a joy to teach. When asked what aspect of math she wishes everyone could understand, she said it is the “skill set you get while taking math classes because it is so valuable throughout your whole life, even if you don’t do specific math problems ever again; the skill to solve complex problems is so important.”
May also loves that Sage Hill has such a caring student body since they are so engaged and interested to learn and make her classroom setting so much fun. Her favorite part about teaching math is when students realize that math doesn’t have to be a miserable process with complex formulas and complicated equations, and can be a fun process “where you collaborate with your ‘math families’ and make good relationships with the peers around you.” She has learned to “always be prepared” for her classes in case students ask questions from a completely different perspective than she has ever thought of.
In her free time, May coaches her daughter’s soccer team and is a big soccer fan herself. Her advice for seniors leaving for college is to “get to know who you are and be flexible as far as changing paths,” similarly to how she went from wanting to pur- sue a career in physical therapy to becoming an educator. “Life can take you on different paths that change your life and you should be open to it. Just be willing to adjust to whatever comes to you,” May said. Another piece of advice she follows from her dad is to “never trust a blinker.” “Nev- er assume you know what others or opportunities will end up doing, wait for them to follow through” May said.
