An Award-Winning Malden Teacher, Profiled

Editorial note: This interview with Malden High School math teacher Nick Lippman, conducted before he won this most recent award, and all the text therein was provided to Patch by Mass Insight Education, a Boston-area nonprofit organization.  

Why did you choose to go into teaching?

I’ve loved math and its applications for as long as I can remember.  As I was entering college I was certain that I wanted to enter into a field involving mathematics.  Through my experience at college I grew to better understand and appreciate the challenges faced by many of our citizens and the role that education could play in helping to meet and overcome some of those challenges.  I decided that I would apply my love of mathematics to becoming an educator and preparing young people to use math in their own lives.

Highlight of your teaching career?

The highlight of my teaching career was being honored by the students of the National Honor Society at last year’s induction ceremony.

Greatest lengths you’ve gone to in order to help students?

When I first started my career I was a teacher in our 9th grade academy.  Our 9th grade students presented some of the greatest challenges of my career.  I knew that a student’s likelihood of eventually graduating from high school was strongly connected to his or her promotion from the 9th grade.  Many of our students struggled with the rigor of the high school curriculum, the transition from middle school to high school and new distractions which they were encountering at the high school level.   Our team of teachers worked tirelessly to assist this challenging group of students and to help as many of them as possible to successfully progress to the next step in high school.

Our efforts included daily meetings to discuss our at-risk students, a homework club that we ran after school to provide an environment in which our struggling students could work and a special parent-teacher conference night in which we targeted the parents and guardians of some of our most troubled students.  We regularly contacted students’ parents in order to develop partnerships that would help us reach the students.

How you impacted a specific student in need and helped the student overcome obstacles?  Without naming names, what was the student’s situation or challenges? What did you do to help overcome them? How did that make you feel?  How has the student done?

I had a student with a disorder that led to significant disabilities within the classroom.  This disorder impacted the student’s academic performance as well as his ability to interact with his peers.  I worked with this student to build his confidence in overcoming both of these challenges.  This student passed the state exam for graduation and also developed new friendships through the class.  I felt as a great a sense of accomplishment from how I was able to assist this student as I did with any of more talented students.

Tell us something about your personal story—hobbies or accomplishments or talents, whatever helps flesh out our Teacher Profile of you.

Although I have had my share of outside interests, most of my time that was once dedicated to hobbies is now taken up by being a parent.  Not only has being a parent of two children provided its own rewards, but it has also given me a different perspective on my teaching.  I feel that I have a greater level of empathy for both children and parents now, and a deeper appreciation for the trust which parent place in me when their child in in my classroom.  Although parenting is not a hobby, and is rarely looked at as an accomplishment or talent, it is by far the more rewarding way to spend my time outside of the classroom.