By Eh Kri Say

Meet Jesse Bender! He teaches English for sophomores and freshmen. He has worked as a teacher for 3 years, but it’s his first year here at McCaskey! Before teaching here, he taught at Reading High School for two years. But since he has lived in Lancaster his whole life, he wanted to teach here because of the community. The diversity of our students here with different backgrounds drew him to come teach at McCaskey.

Before working here at McCaskey, he was a reporter for the Huntingdon Daily News covering mostly school board meetings, township meetings, and whatever was occurring at the time. What he loved most about working there was the chance to learn about so many different things, having the chance to interview college professors and business experts, and learning more from them. Although the job was really fun, he decided to pursue his education career,  as he’s more interested in teaching than writing articles.

His favorite part of his job is the fact that he gets to talk to so many students, and get their perspective of so many different things. With English, he enjoys how he gets to talk about anything such as religion, race, life, etc. Reading and talking about stories was what he loved so that eventually led him to his passion of teaching English. The biggest challenge for him is definitely the amount of grading, reading over lots of papers, and helping people write lots of things. He really loves it but the quantity can be a challenge. 

He spends his time out of school either with his wife, playing games, going for walks, reading & writing, listening to music, watching movies, and playing instruments such as the mandolin and violin. Lacking time alone in quietness, he spends a lot of his time either with students, work, listening or watching things which takes up lots of time. He wishes to spend more time sitting by himself listening to his own thoughts.

Motivated by knowledge, loving to learn new things, and finding new things. He values caring for other people and to show his students and fellow teachers that he cares. Learning not to be so quick to judge and ask questions more when students aren’t doing what they’re supposed to, as they might be dealing with their own personal issues, he learned to give people grace and challenge them more as he’s teaching.