Hello and welcome back to this week’s staff spotlight article! This week we have Mars Robmann, more commonly known as Mx. Mars! They are an English teacher in our very own MTS. They enjoy reading books and going to study at college. They are an entertaining person. Even when I was asking my usual boring general questions they managed to liven it up, but I digress.

My first question to them was if they had any influential teachers in high school. The first teacher they told me about was their 10th grade English teacher. Afterward, I asked why they wanted to teach English they responded by telling me how much they loved books and how they wanted students to love books as well. Next, I asked how they deal with a loud or stressful classroom. They said, “I usually try to freeze in place with a weird expression on my face,” they then told me if it was a middle school class they would just start singing.

I then started asking my questions that are more specifically about them. I started by asking about their hobby of going to college and why do they do it. They explained to me how they like learning and talking about different topics with other people. Also, it helps them with scheduling because of the deadlines that school gives. I then asked about what traits do they have that are similar to their high school teachers. They told me some similar traits they had were that they told bad jokes and talked about real-world topics. Furthermore, they wanted to make a room that is similar to one teacher they had that was deemed a fire hazard by a fire marshal.

Finally, I started asking my last few questions. I asked who was one of their favorite authors and they told me that they really enjoy reading books and stories by Nnedi Okorafor. They told me that their favorite book was the first one they read by Nnedi which is The Shadow Speaker. I was told that Nnedi makes books about Afrofuturism and that one reason they like the author was that they talk about real-world topics in a fantastical way. I asked what is a topic that they dread teaching. The answer they told was the first time I ever heard these words come from an English teacher’s mouth! Mx. Mars said, “Fun fact: I hate teaching writing!” This response blew my mind. Finally, I asked what is one thing they want their students to learn from them. They told how they wanted to make their students curious.

That was my interview with Mx. Mars. I hope you enjoyed reading my article. Thanks to Mx. Mars for agreeing to participate in this interview. Make sure to join me next time where we interview another staff member. As always, have a great day!