Mr. Hand is one of the few new teachers this year at McCaskey Campus! We talked over Zoom for this interview to get a sense for how this school year is going for him so far and how he is adapting to online teaching. 

To go over the basics, Mr. Hand teaches 10th grade CA and 11th grade CA and is located in classroom 102! Originally from New York, Mr. Hand had moved around the East Coast a lot and is currently living in Lancaster County with his fiancee and two dogs. He has lots of hobbies and dabbles in different skills such as art, graphic design, and music production.

Since he has moved around a lot, he taught at a lot of school districts along the East Coast. Mr. Hand started teaching in Southwest Philadelphia. “I was at a middle school and taught 7th grade writing. While I was there, we would regularly have classroom visitors, who taught me and my students a lot about how trauma impacts us, and about things like self-care and relationships.” He explained that, “These were the kinds of things that made me want to get into teaching in the first place!” 

After working in Philadelphia, Mr. Hand then took a different job in Asheville, North Carolina teaching 9th through 12th graders. It was a boarding program for girls, and the entire program was focused on helping students who have experienced trauma. Mr. Hand stated that the students he worked with made him a much better teacher than he was previously, and that he felt like he had the skills that should bring him back to public education. 

When he got engaged to his partner in 2018, they moved back to Pennsylvania, where he taught English last school year in Berks County. He told me: “When the opportunity to come work for the district I lived in came up, I couldn’t refuse. I am so excited to be back in High School and teaching in our amazing city!” 

Mr. Hand’s primary motivation for being the teacher that he is today is not only teaching kids how to read and write, but to really understand his students. “I wasn’t the best student. I wasn’t even an okay student. I struggled a lot in school, and I would say most of that started when I entered high school,” he explained. 

Then, he kept going, “I had always done really well in classes, but my motivation dropped off as I started to feel like classes were less about relationships and more about tests and quizzes and handing things in on time. I started to realize that the stuff I thought was boring wasn’t so bad when I had a teacher who devoted time in their classroom to get to know us, support us, and understand where we were coming from.”

When asked why he is teaching CA, he stated, “I think I knew from the start that CA is a class where we can talk about and explore anything.” Mr. Hand expanded more on his point, stating: “The stories we share in novels and poems and other forms aren’t just stories about specific characters—they’re lessons about our own lives and what it means to be human. I want to support students in decoding those messages, and improving their writing so that each and every one of them can express themselves with command.” 

Since he is not able to see his students due to the pandemic, Mr. Hand stated that “Getting to know my students is so important! I try not to get hung up on “what if,” because I know our classes can make this work! Classes have been a lot of fun.” 

He expresses his enjoyment of teaching even though we’re all in the middle of a pandemic, saying: “I am glad to see more and more students warming up to our CA discussions, and our non-CA discussions about things like pizza toppings and weird flavor combinations, as we start each new lesson!”

Mr. Hand’s expressiveness and efforts to be a great teacher despite facing a pandemic really pays off seeing how welcoming, open, and discussion-focused his classes are. When asked what he thinks makes him unique, he exclaimed, “Ha! I wouldn’t know! I put my Crocs on one foot at a time, just like everyone else!”

The final message he wants to convey to his students with this spotlight, “You cannot pour from an empty cup. This experience is about you. Be an advocate for yourself and communicate your needs to me and to everyone else. We are here to prepare you for something greater, so help us understand what that looks like (because it looks different for each and every one of you). I am so proud of you all.”