There are people who struggle somehow in school, and I was no exception to this. I could never focus in school because of my boredom. Nothing in school was really interesting. Everything seemed so bland or repetitive. One class was just reading the whole time with only occasional writing involved! The only thing I enjoyed was time with my friends.
North Shore Middle School wasn’t helping me focus with strict teachers who were weird or goofy. I had been excelling in my grades, but I wasn’t motivated into beginning to like school. There wasn’t any different teacher, right? But what I was about to walk into was the best teacher I have ever met--and now, 3 years later, I still compare my teachers to him.
I had met him while my brother was still at North Shore. He was different, he seemed to enjoy everyone in his class, and was still strict when it came to teaching--but in a different way. Approaching his room in the farthest hall, I walked into classroom heaven. I was greeted and treated like I were a part of his family, like I was related to him.
The Brewers-loving, darkhair man was my eighth grade geometry teacher, Mr. Vento. He was strict, weird and goofy. How could one teacher be everything while all of my other teachers were just one of the three? He wasn’t afraid to show me why, either. My view of school changed after having Mr. Vento.
Mr. Vento would joke about us and we’d joke about him. We were never left out, because we’d all laugh and join in as he lured us like flies looking for cow pies.He was like the Yogi Berra of math. He would not only engage us, but he would also randomly pick on us based on how much we’d talk. It made me a prime target because of how silent I would be. I was picked almost every other day to answer something new, and if I didn’t understand it, he would help me to understand. One time, he even poured water on me for answering a question wrong. I was baffled, but in the end I saw it as his way of teaching me the subject, and for me to pay attention. But I wasn’t the only one who ever had that happen- Everyone had at least one thing happen to them from answering a question wrong. But it made them better at the subject, too. We were learning when we didn’t even know we were because of his method.
He would take time off of doing homework in class to play games like foursquare. It was fun to knock him out of the game when he would play, it felt so exhilarating. We would not only play foursquare, but we would play games like silent ball as well. It engaged our class to be together as a group, and not separate. Everyday we played a game near the end of the period, and it was the best way to end a school day. I became more focused and determined as I would step into his class each day.
He wasn’t only teaching me at the time, though. I found out that my brother was struggling in math in high school, so he returned to Mr. Vento for help. He did this because he trusted Vento.
Mr. Vento taught in engaging ways, making us enjoy the lessons while we were learning one of the worst subjects. If you can teach anyone like my brother, who would struggle in math because he wasn’t as smart and he didn’t really care about his grades (he liked to act like he was “gangster”) and me, who couldn’t grasp concepts and math in general, that takes pure skill right there. No one has quite taught yet like Vento.
But he was not only teaching us. He also told us about his family and we’d just have normal discussions about things happening in the real world, a place people are never too familiar with. It was like I was at home, with my family. I learned so much from him, including math and the real world.  He was the best to me. His class was the first class I began to not be afraid to speak in.