Interview by Maile Biehl
The Falconer: How's your first full year teaching here so far?
Mr. Ouimet: So far, my first year teaching has been going pretty well. The fact that I got to substitute here and work as a paraprofessional here for the last three years leading up to this has helped a lot with transitioning. I knew most if not all of my students already before the year started so I did not have to worry quite as much about fitting into the culture here and I have just been able to focus on the academic side of things and lesson planning and all that.
The Falconer: What drew you to teaching here rather than somewhere else?
Mr. O: I think, just the experiences I had substitute teaching the first two years I was here led to me really wanting to stay in Mashpee. It was just a great community overall. Before working in Mashpee, I was in Wareham substituting for a year at the middle school. I enjoyed it a lot. That’s kinda where the interest in teaching for me was sparked but it was much crazier, a crazier building and a just, very different atmosphere. So Mashpee was a nice change of pace and I really liked how things are run, how administration handled things and just in general, the student body is just made up of just great kids and great people, just the whole package. It’s just a good place.
The Falconer: How's your first full year teaching here so far?
Mr. Ouimet: So far, my first year teaching has been going pretty well. The fact that I got to substitute here and work as a paraprofessional here for the last three years leading up to this has helped a lot with transitioning. I knew most if not all of my students already before the year started so I did not have to worry quite as much about fitting into the culture here and I have just been able to focus on the academic side of things and lesson planning and all that.
The Falconer: What drew you to teaching here rather than somewhere else?
Mr. O: I think, just the experiences I had substitute teaching the first two years I was here led to me really wanting to stay in Mashpee. It was just a great community overall. Before working in Mashpee, I was in Wareham substituting for a year at the middle school. I enjoyed it a lot. That’s kinda where the interest in teaching for me was sparked but it was much crazier, a crazier building and a just, very different atmosphere. So Mashpee was a nice change of pace and I really liked how things are run, how administration handled things and just in general, the student body is just made up of just great kids and great people, just the whole package. It’s just a good place.
The Falconer: What do you like about teaching math rather than a different subject?
Mr. O: I think what I like about math is how logical it is. In a lot of ways, math problems are kinda like puzzles, right, so it's just an exercise of problem solving skills where when you have a lot of the fundamentals of math down, like a lot of the basic algebra skills down, as math gets more complex, it's just using all those tools in more and more creative ways and just figuring out the optimal way to get from point a to point b in a problem, which is really fun for me.
The Falconer: Do you enjoy being a coach here as well as a teacher?
Mr. O: I love coaching. That's another part of the reason I suppose I really want to stick in Mashpee. Coaching cross-country and track these last two years has been an absolute blast. It's super fun working with the kids, outside of the academic space and getting to know them through the athletics as well and I just super enjoy running myself. It's just a great pass time for kinda staying in shape and sane. So getting to share that with kids and helping them to grow there as well has been super great.
The Falconer: What made you interested in the idea of coaching?
Mr. O: I was a big runner in high school, that was my big thing. I ran cross-country and distance for winter and spring track. I kinda dropped it a bit in college because of how busy things were but still liked running, at least the theory that goes into it. The second year I was here subbing, I saw a posting for a middle school cross-country coach, I figured why not. I still would, even if i'm not in shape, i'm still knowledgeable on running and i guess the opportunity was there and I liked running so I figured, why not. I ended up loving it and stuck with it.
The Falconer: What do you like to do in your free time?
Mr. O: Let's, see. My biggest things are playing video games. Especially a game called League of Legends. It takes up a lot of my time. Super Smash Brothers, things like that. Not as much recently but in the past I’ve done a lot of art work. One of the other things I am actually certified to teach is art. I’m really big into watercolor painting, so I do a lot of that. I also watch a lot of movies. Like, a lot of movies. I keep track and keep a spreadsheet with ratings and stuff. I think I'm approaching eight hundred movies. So I do that a lot in my free time. I watch things online with my friends. Most of my friends live pretty far away, geographically. The closest ones are in the Boston and Worcester area and then we've got people out in New York, California, Sweden, Australia, all over the globe. So we do everything online so we’ll do things like watch a movie online where we will sink up our time and watch them as a group which is a lot of fun.
The Falconer: What is your favorite movie?
Mr. O: My favorite movie, definitely one called “Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”. It’s a weird indie film from a couple of years ago. It’s excellent. I don't even know how to describe it. Its great. Not for everybody but it's a really good movie.