Happy New Year and welcome to the third installment of Getting to Know Your Teachers! As a great start to the new year, January’s teacher is Dr. Moore! Dr. Moore teaches a total of four classes this year: AP Physics, AP Chemistry, Physics, and a Robotics class. Along with classes, she also does STEM for Girls and coaches cheerleading. She was chosen based on a Google form at the bottom of the last installment where students vote on who should be the next teacher; everyone, including teachers, is encouraged to answer the form at the bottom of this article. Thank you Dr. Moore for your excitement in participating!
Teaching-Related Questions
Q: Out of all the classes you teach, which one is your favorite?
A: I think I like AP Physics because I have two of those classes, so it’s more students. It’s just interesting, AP Chem is a lot. Regular physics is fun, but I feel like the students aren’t as interested. Robotics has a lot of younger students, a lot of freshmen, who are a little more to handle. Yeah, but AP Physics is fun.
Q: What made you want to be a teacher?
A: I started off as a nursing major and it was a backup career. I was gonna go to Med School, but then I couldn’t afford it because it was really expensive. Then I ended up teaching at a Catholic school because you don’t need a teaching degree and I ended up loving it. I was there for 10 years.
Q: What is one of the most rewarding things as a teacher?
A: Getting to know students, all day long you get to talk to students and see where they are down the line. I got a couple of students that are now doctors or pharmacists. One of my students who I’m still in contact with has her doctorate in audiology and designs hearing aids. There are a couple of lawyers, it’s just cool to see where everyone has gone.
Q: What’s your teaching style? What do you do differently?
A: I teach tough subjects so I try to make them as less painful as possible because they’re really hard. I try to make them more approachable I guess. I don’t think I have a style, I just think I try to keep you guys from freaking out half the time.
Q: What is your favorite lesson that you teach?
A: I think electricity because electricity is something we use every day, but we don’t really know how it works. When we finally put the pieces together or when I introduce that lab it’s kind of cool because you don’t know how it works. I think that is the coolest lesson, that or, in Chem, the flame test. Just the lessons that have fun labs.
Personal Questions
Q: What hobbies do you enjoy when you’re not teaching?
A: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I like traveling, I got a couple of weird places on my list that I wanna go to next. I got a dog, I go hiking with her. I really don’t do anything. I watch a lot of Netflix I guess, meet up with a couple of friends, and hang out with my nieces and nephews. Pretty boring.
Q: (Yassyra Gonzalez) What’s your favorite cheerleading move? Did you cheer in high school?
A: Anything that’s like a wow factor. Like a cool lift, I think it’s called Swedish falls. You just basically toss a girl, you hold onto her feet and you just toss her and when you do it in unison it looks like a waterfall. Like a tuck toss is exciting, anything that’s like a crowd pleaser. A standing tuck is always impressive, but that’s about it. I cheered in both high school and in college.
Q: (Alina Amaro) Where were you in life in 2011?
A: I was teaching at Paramus Catholic. Teaching chemistry and coaching the dance team. Yeah, that was it.
Q: What would you say your sister dynamic with Ms. Bowden is?
A: I think we’re kind of the same. She’s more witty and she’s better with words. She’s more cunning and she’s quick to come back, whereas I have to think about things for a minute. She’s definitely more witty, she’s so bright. We’re the same but different, and the way we speak is similar, but she knows books and uses big words when I’m like “nobody would use that word, relax we all know you’re smart.” I think I’m just goofy, not cunning like her. Sometimes I’m talking with her and she uses some big word and I’m like, “I don’t know what that means!”
Q: (Ian Lenaghan) What’s your favorite season of Game of Thrones? (Sean Duggan) What did you think of the finale?
A: I think the best season was season 4, specifically the episode, it’s called “The Viper and The Mountain”, and it’s trial by combat and I think I had nightmares because it was like the viper versus the mountain and the viper won. So specifically that season was awesome, then season 6 was like the leading up to where everything should’ve gone amazing, but then the last season was just garbage. I don’t know, I’m all over the place. I like season 4, season 6, and then season 7 was just a very big letdown.
Random Questions
Q: (Yassyra Gonzalez) Are you a Belieber?
A: A Belieber? Nooo, sorry. The music I like is like, I don’t know, I’ve got a weird niche of music, it’s not any modern stuff. The playlist I play in class is Hipster Cocktail Barbeque, that’s the name of it on Pandora!
Q: (Anonymous) Is water wet?
A: Oh my god! What a stupid question! Water is not wet. Wet is a description, so no, water is not wet.
Q: (Alina Amaro) What Britney Spears album resonates with you the most?
A: I don’t know! I like her song Work, I don’t know where that’s from. (Dr. Moore and I then looked through the songs in Britney Spears’s albums) I guess Britney Jean, you’ve got work on there, Tik Tik Boom, okay yeah. Britney Jean.
Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A: I don’t know, that’s so silly! He’d chuck the wood that a woodchuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood! Right? Isn’t that the right answer?
(It was later discovered that the correct answer is: “As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood” according to Boston College Libraries or around 700 pounds according to nd.gov)
Q: (Rebecca Mathews) If you were a utensil, what utensil would you be and why?
A: What a weird question! What counts as a utensil? Just fork, knife, spoon? That’s it? I guess I’d be a knife, wait no, I’d be a fork. Yeah because that’s the one that’s the most useful, right?
“She puts the Moore in more physics fun!”
Yassyra Gonzalez
Have another teacher or question in mind for the February interview? Tell us here: Getting to Know Your Teachers google form