Cypress High School welcomes Mr. Kim: a new teacher in the English department, who graduated from Cal State Long Beach. His passion for teaching started in his Junior to Senior year of high school due to his English teachers that made learning enjoyable which further encouraged him to learn outside the classroom. 

Mr. Kim’s favorite part of teaching so far has been interacting with the students. He starts the week off with celebrations, where he asks his students if anything memorable happened over the weekend. On the other hand, the more difficult part of being a teacher to him is managing the work-life balance. Still, he stays optimistic and is looking forward to getting to know the faculty and students better by going to more activities and events such as football and basketball games and chaperoning dances. Outside of school, Mr. Kim enjoys watching basketball (especially his favorite player: Kyrie Irving) and listening to artists such as Kenderick Lamar. 

During his time thus far at Cypress, Mr. Kim learned valuable lessons that school/college didn’t teach him. 

“People are really different in real life. In school, learning is very textbook, but in practice, you never know and you can only know so much about a student,” he stated. 

He advises college students wanting to be teachers to try observing as much as they can and to be in the classroom often. 

Mr. Kim states, “Before you even decide on going to college to be a teacher, really find out why you want to be one.” 

A word of advice he has for his students is to always be kind since no one knows what others are going through.  He sometimes advises himself to not be so critical whenever he makes mistakes. 

“I tell myself that it’s ok to make mistakes and I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.” 

Let’s all warmly welcome Mr. Kim to the Centurion family!