“The Rise of Nazi Germany.” The first words that could been seen as one enters room H103 as the poster of student projects are overshadowed by those words alone. Those words are the first impression one may have as they enter Mr. Jones’ classroom, wondering “What have I gotten in to?” Despite this abrupt first impression, Mr. Jones has quickly become an effective teacher and a subtle comedian when interacting with students.  He has made the classroom an environment of learning even when faced with troublesome students and their cohorts. He has a dry sense of humor in conjunction with his lessons. No matter what he is doing in the classroom he is always calm and collected and always seems to know what he is going to do in any given situation.

When Mr. Jones teaches a lesson, instead of merely going over the information, he emphasizes the key points in which we should remember. This is a positive and helpful teaching strategy as it is useful for keeping students aware of the main concept, while saving specific details for individual studying. This is also helpful for tests and quizzes as he points out what students should expect to be challenged by. This strategy is emphasized by Mr. Jones being able to condense three pages of reading into a singular slide with four small bullet points. Like most teachers, you can expect a higher grade the more effort you put into your work. However, Mr. Jones is willing to take this one step further as he creates small twists here and there to trip any student not paying attention or not willing to put in the effort. For example in chapter five, Mr. Jones told his students in Modern World History that they had to create a tree map on the back of their homework assignments. Though he did advise his students to put down as much detail as possible, he didn’t require it so some students only put down one sentence for each branch of their tree map. Taking the easy way out hit students who did this hard as when there were tests for sections 5.2 and 5.3, he allowed the use of the tree map on the quizzes, which helped those who put in the work and effort into their tree maps, while not helping those who did the bare minimum of work. By using these strategies, Mr. Jones has made his class more focused on learning and effort mirroring the merit based world of the workplace, teaching his students realistic expectations and events which may occur at a job.

Other than being an effective teacher, Mr. Jones has been funny not in the most apparent way imaginable. While some teachers are vibrant and upbeat about their humor, Mr. Jones’ approach is the opposite being very dry with his humor. It mostly consists of references to modern-day culture and relatable ideas bouncing off of random things that his students say in class. One moment a group of people are talking about LeBron James, next thing you know, you hear Mr. Jones making a witty remark about the Lakers and their chances of winning the next game they play. This humor is amusing as it adds more emotion to the subject of history which some students can find dry and bland.

Mr. Jones has an effect on his students which is truly unique. From his educational strategies to his dry humor, he has influenced the mind of youth into creating history more vibrant to observe. Only one phrase comes into mind after receiving such wonderful gifts from him, thank you.

-Robinson Lee, 9, Pow Wow, Staff Writer