Welcome Mr. Frederick!

Mr. Frederick is new to the Apex High staff, teaching 9th grade world history. He was born in Cary and grew up in Morrisville for most of his life. I had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Frederick and ask him some questions about himself.

Q: Why did you choose your subject area?

A: I’ve always had a passion for history, even when I was in elementary school, it was always my favorite and it really just impacts everyone so much. You can always learn what people are like and what they have done in the past.

Q: What did you do before coming to Apex?

A: So, a little while ago, I graduated from Appalachian State, great college, and then after that I taught for a little bit at Watauga High school up near there and now I’m back here.

Q: What are your thoughts on Apex so far? How does Apex compare to other schools?

A: It’s great, I love it here! All the other teachers have been super nice and helpful to me, they’ve been a big help since I am brand new at this school and pretty brand new to teaching in general so pretty great.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: I like sports a lot, watching them, I go play basketball with my friend, movies, TV shows all that kind of stuff.

Q: What were you like as a student?

A: I was the kid who just kind of showed up to class, wasn’t ever super early, wasn’t super late. Participated but not a lot, I was just kind of your average kid who worked hard and tried to get good grades.

Q: What advice would you give to students?

A: I would say definitely do your work, don’t let the zeroes pile up because you don’t even realize it until towards the end how bad that kind of stuff actually brings down your grade because you just think “oh, one assignment, it won’t matter.” But when it adds up, then it definitely does.

Q: If you weren’t teaching, what would you be doing?

A: So, dream job, before this, I was a camp counselor over the summer. I loved that, it was so great, it was the best job ever, it was so fun. Other than that, I don’t know, it would be pretty cool to work at a museum or something like that, just dealing with history.

Q: What was your most memorable moment as a teacher?

A: I would say the most memorable thing would be back when I was actually student teaching a little while ago. I had a student who was struggling a little, but at the end he made me a card and it said “thanks for not giving up on me”, “thanks for helping me” and all that kind of stuff, and it was super nice and sweet, I was glad to see that I was able to help.

Q: What do you think your students think of you?

A: I’d say they definitely notice that I’m younger a teacher, closer to their age, than most are. So, I guess they just kind of feel like I understand more of what they’re going through and all, but hopefully they still do see me as a teacher, I do give homework and all, so they probably aren’t always the happiest about that.

 

Links to Interview (in order):

Interview Part One

Interview Part Two