As one of a handful of new teachers added to Oakdale’s staff this year, Mr. Matthew Pritts’ impact on students has been instantaneous. He has offered each of his math classes enduring support. His journey from being an accounting major to following his dreams of teaching is one to be heard.
Mr. Pritts attended Middletown High School and studied accounting at Salisbury University. To his dismay, he realized that wasn’t for him and switched majors to pursue teaching. His senior calculus teacher sparked his inspiration by “pushing that love on to me and making me fall in love with it too,” Pritts acknowledged.
Close ties with Middletown led to Pritts taking a position as a math teacher at the middle school.
“I really wanted to teach high school math, and Oakdale was one of the few positions that was open, so I applied for it and luckily it was offered, and so I really wanted to teach higher-level math, and so that is what drew me here,” he explained. At Oakdale, Mr. Pritts teaches Geometry as well as Algebra 1.
“I think he is a good teacher because he has a good way of connecting with the students while also having fun,“ Graiden Beaver, a freshman at Oakdale, offered his thoughts on Mr. Pritts as a teacher. “I would say sticking with what he has going with, which is paper notes. I enjoy paper notes more than online notes where you copy.”
“Mr. Pritts is a good teacher because recently I missed a few days of school and he really helped me catch back up on the work,” Ayden Rowe, a sophomore at Oakdale, praised his supportive and informative teaching style. “I would say his teaching style is effective because he teaches the right things for the tests.”
“I like to flicker the lights a little which helps get everyone’s attention, or I just set off a big noise and that usually draws everyone’s attention, like some YouTube noise and so I get everyone’s attention on me, and that’s the way I do it,” he shared, further explaining his successful teaching style.
These two techniques are how he faces his biggest challenge of keeping confidence and making students understand that he wants to maintain mutual respect. changing from middle to high school education came with some struggles of its own.
“Starting off teaching, that was probably the toughest part and what I’m still kinda challenged with is having full control and establishing myself here,” expressed Mr.Pritts.
Mr. Pritts’ warm-heartedness and energy has made him a student favorite within the math department and he’s been credited as a great teacher. Let’s give Mr. Pritts a warm welcome to Oakdale High School.
