Mr.D

Chemistry Major To Middle School Math Teacher

Mr.D       Photo Credit: 1

Mr.D is a middle school math teacher at Banaadir Academy of Minneapolis who has encountered many obstacles and challenges in his quest to becoming a teacher. After realizing chemistry was not his true passion in life, he left college sophomore year and worked for a sports store in Madison, Wisconsin. Through an encounter with a customer, he began a new job working for an after school program, where he realized he wanted to become a teacher. He went back to college once again to fulfill his goal and achieved it within his four years there. This is now Mr. D’s 15th year teaching for MTS (Minneapolis Transitions Charter Schools) and his first year teaching at Banaadir Academy.

First Try At College

I went to Bemidji State University, in Bemidji, Minnesota. It was not the first college I went to, it actually was the second time I went to college. I think the first time I tried, it just did not work out. I had a great chemistry teacher in high school, his name was Mr. Lipp, and he could make anything pretty awesome and exciting. So I went into college wanting to be a chemistry major. Once I actually got into the chemistry labs, I did not like titrations, nor did I like that there was so much information and then there was only one teacher for 500 of us. I ended up making a pretty poor choice to go to the classes I liked and avoid the ones I didn’t and so I basically ended up getting almost A’s and F’s. When I tried, I did great and when I didn’t, things didn’t work out that well. So I walked into the Dean’s Office; this would’ve been 94’ in the winter, just before the year changed, end of my third semester, three days before finals and I said, “Look, I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t like this. I’m not happy. I wanna go to college, I just don’t know what for.” And so we talked for a while and he said, “You know, I believe you and I’m going to let you take W’s,” so withdrawals.

Finding Himself

After that experience, I went to Madison, Wisconsin and I literally started walking up State Street. If you know Madison, State Street goes right up to the Capitol and there’s all kinds of stores, but one of them caught my eye. It was called Sports World and it had a couple of frisbees in the window. I was into frisbee at the time, so I walked right in and said, “Are you hiring?” Basically, the man said he wasn’t hiring, but we talked for about two hours and the next thing he says is, “You’re hired, you start tomorrow. You’re going to Minneapolis to sell roller blades at a convention center.” So that was good, I got a job and I did this for about a year and I met doctor’s, author’s, lawyers, the UPS guy, firefighters, even Michael Jordan’s photographer. But one of them was an art teacher and she ended up saying, “You know, have you ever thought about being a teacher?” After talking to her for an hour, I said, “No ma’am, I’ve never even babysat.” She said, “I want you to go apply for this after school program.” And that’s what I did. She worked at Madison Elementary School and they needed someone to work in the gym. A third of the kids were white, single parent; a third of the kids were black, single parent; and a third of the kids were Hmong. They never really interacted with one another, so my job was to get them all to work together. We did things like playing volleyball with a beach ball, where it was accessible to everyone. On the last day of the eight week program, little Devante said, “Mr.D, you cannot leave us.” He was the toughest kid in the class and he was just bawling. So I’m like okay, I need to do this. This is where I’m supposed to be. So I actually applied to Bemidji. I got accepted three days before the year started and was on the road to a four year degree.

The Bumpy Road To Becoming A Teacher

Throughout those college years, I had a big, long, blonde ponytail and it kind of bucked the system a little bit. I went to Northern Minnesota and you walk around Northern Minnesota 20 years ago with a ponytail and people look at you like, “Who is he?” And so I think some of my professors chose to judge me. I had to ask a teacher, “Are you grading me objectively or subjectively?” Even my counselor in college told me, “You will never get a teaching job in Minnesota with long hair.” And I said look, I’m going to prove him wrong. That was one of the main challenges that I faced on my journey to becoming a teacher. But now that I am a teacher, I can say that I am most proud of the fact that I’m still here, I’m still doing it and I still enjoy it.

School Logo     Photo Credit: 2

A Rewarding Career

What motivates me to keep teaching is potential. Seeing these kids, you know, come in bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready to learn. I tell them they are the future. I’m going to need a doctor. I’m going to need a this, that, and the other. This year, many of our students might have been only a year’s removed, or weeks, or even months from a refugee camp, and it’s been really neat to learn more about their culture and where they’re from, and understand some of the struggles that they’ve faced. They all have had and will continue to have stumbling blocks along the way, because I did. Some of them come in and say, “I believe that this is going to work.” You know, but I’ve had some students in the past that said, “Look I, I’m not gonna make it to twenty years old. So, why should I try?” and some say, “I hate your class,” every single day. Most of those are the same kids who come back and say, “Thank you for not giving up on me.” I hope to communicate that message right away, that I believe that every one of these kids can grow up to be successful. And I really do. So seeing success from the ground up and seeing those little things you do make a difference is pretty cool.  And as I move forward, what I want to get them doing is being more self- driven, rather than teacher-driven. You know, trying to recognize what do I know, what do I need to know, and then choosing to learn, and not just being told information and recounting it, but actually knowing why. I really want my kids to continue to question me, “Why are we doing this? Why did you do that?” and striving for that deeper understanding. Because if you can learn this, or math, you can learn anything.

                                                                                 

Photo Credit: 1  http://mtcs.org/site/banaadir-academy/meet-the-team/
                        2   http://mtcs.org/site/banaadir-academy/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2014/09/Banaadir-logo-    copy.png