I used to dread going to math class...until I met Tom Fechter. Mr. Fechter was my Advanced Algebra Teacher sophomore year and he made going to math class exciting, interesting, and unpredictable. For a man short in stature, he undermines height  with loud, enthusiastic stories in between math lessons. In class, I took three math quizzes a week; a strenuous workload, but Mr. Fechter was always there to help with his sense of humor, understanding, and compassion.

Mr. Fechter uses his sense of humor to wake his students up.  He even acknowledges that sometimes he’s thinking about his wife’s homemade ribs in math class.This shows how he understands his students are not always focused on math, so he relates to them.

Mr. Fechter learns too, just like his students. He was teaching at North Campus in the morning in his earlier years at Arrowhead when smartboards were new, and he was learning to use it. He liked how you could use the Smart-eraser to circle work and tap to get rid off all of it. He would constantly use it to teach his morning math classes.

Later those same days, he went down to South Campus to teach math later in the day. This time, there was no smartboard in his math room. Mr. Fechter jokingly told us he accidently tried to use a normal eraser to erase all of his work on the whiteboard with just a tap. At first he didn’t realize what was wrong, but then he came to his senses and shared a laugh with his students, so  Mr. Fechter tells stories like this all the time to make his students get their minds working. He’s as funny as a clown.

Mr. Fechter doesn’t just tell past stories, but he also creates new ones with his students. To help us learn the angle measures of circles, he had us play musical chairs. Instead of chairs, though, we had to solve whatever angle measure problem we were stopped on. We only had a certain amount of time to solve each math problem, so it was a very exciting game . This shows how he once again can actively engage his students in math.

The best part of Mr. Fechter is that he helps students with any question, problem, or dilemma. He goes above and beyond and gives in-depth answers on the questions during a quiz or a test. Mr. Fechter also helps his students make up their missed work if they were absent a day. I was out for a week and when I returned, Mr. Fechter helped me set dates for when I could turn in my missed work. He even helped me review for the test I missed one on one. This showed me he cares about each of his students.

Mr. Fechter is my favorite educator because of the way he teaches math class. He makes it fun for his students and teaches them. He connects with his students and understands when they need some help or an extra day to take a test. Mr. Fechter made math class fun with his sense of humor, understanding, and compassion and this is why he is my favorite educator of the year.