The start of this school year brought the arrival of many new teachers to Yarmouth High School, including Pennsylvania native, Mr. Hontz. Majoring in chemistry at East Stroudsburg University, where he continued his passion of javelin throwing, becoming ninth in the nation. After teaching chemistry in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he now teaches Honors and AP Chemistry and CP Astronomy. In the spring, he will be coaching the javelin, triple jump, and hurdles events for track and field.
We spoke to Mr. Hontz about the transition to Yarmouth and his outlook on the future, as well as addressed some ongoing rumors.
Mr. Hontz expressed multiple major differences between Yarmouth and his previous school. “I feel like student choice and accountability—and empowerment, really—is a lot higher here,” he said. At his previous school, he described “a lot of structure” and a lack of student freedom: “My last school was much more structured in terms of bells every class to start and end, morning bells in the morning, security walking the halls to make sure people were in class.” Luckily for Yarmouth, he considered the freedom at Yarmouth to be “a good thing” because it “builds trust.” This, he felt, was the biggest difference in culture.
In terms of academics, Mr. Hontz held similar sentiments about Yarmouth students. “The students at Yarmouth have a capability of handling higher-level stuff than the average student at my previous school,” he said. In fact, he even admitted, “I’ve actually made every single assessment so far this year at a higher level than it was at my previous school.” He attributed this difference to “what Yarmouth does here,” however he pointed out that his classes mainly consisted of underclassmen, rather than the mostly-upperclassmen he teaches at Yarmouth.
Nevertheless, when asked, he did agree that there was a correlation between the freedom Yarmouth cultivates and the academic mentality of the students. He confessed that he’s experienced “an interesting shift” coming to Yarmouth: “There’s a freedom and a willingness for me to say 'this is not graded' and still having people do it and coming with questions; so, I definitely feel like giving the options have been more successful here than at my previous school. There's more willingness to learn because you want to know.” This interest was different from his previous school, he said, where he described, “I [had] to have a point value for everything at my previous school, where otherwise people would not do it.”Regarding the exciting upcoming track season, Mr. Hontz described his biggest sentiment as curiosity: “I’m curious how track and field translates in Maine versus Pennsylvania and New Jersey.” He further explained, “There’s a much bigger population generally where I’m from, so there’s a certain level of competition that I think goes with that, but I’m curious to see what level of success we can have.”
Still, he affirmed, “I am a true believer that skill is evenly distributed. I’m hoping to see numbers that are somewhat similar to what I’ve coached, or have the opportunity to coach kids to that level.”
And, of course, as with all new teachers, there were many rumors spreading about his background. We brought up one of the most extensive.
When confronted with the allegations about his supposedly-Amish origins, Mr. Hontz responded in good nature. “I’m neutral to it,” Mr. Hontz said, “but my now-wife [was also] under the impression that there is a very large Amish population in Pennsylvania, which I believe to be not true.”
We really enjoyed our time with Mr. Hontz and getting to know this teacher.
Courtesy of Clipper Chronicle
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