by Jacob Ponder

“PCM itself has been great to me. I really enjoy working here. The staff, students, and parents I have communicated with all seem to be very friendly and excited to see me succeed. The high temperatures and a classroom full of teenagers can tend to be a little rough. As the temperature rises everyone seems to get a little more on edge, my eighth period can attest to that.”

Anthony Wojtysiak is from the Duluth, Minn. region. He graduated high school from Wrenshall and attended the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth. Outside of school, Mr. Wojtysiak enjoys roller skating, ice skating, and baking. This is his first teaching job, however he has had plenty of other positions that center around education. Some notable positions he’s had include being a college math teaching assistant, a high school math tutor for the Iowa State University Upward Bound program and spending the last five summers working as a team leader or head resident for the the Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math and Science programs at the College of Saint Scholastica. Other positions that he’s had include working as a Audio/Visual Tech for the College of Saint Scholastica, substitute teaching in the city of Ames, and working at Uhaul. Finally, he has also student taught at a small charter school that catered toward middle school students in the Duluth region.

His best advice for students is, “Take the stairs whenever possible. I fought off the freshmen 15 in college by never taking them, and there is nothing more inconsiderate than seeing someone who truly needs to use the elevator, have to wait for all the able-bodied people to finish with it. In all seriousness though, my best advice for anyone would be to first form opinions on things in their lives but to hold those opinions carefully. A smart person  is one who forms an opinion about something and finds time to educate themselves on it to support or amend their opinions. More often than not, we as a society forget about the latter part of statement and pass judgement immediately without reconsideration.”

When asked about his hardest subject, Calculus, he said, “doing my best to make both their lives and my own as painless as possible through calculus. Some days it is actually really difficult because it is such a change in abilities between all my other courses and calculus. Sometimes I think that I am actually making it too easy for them.”