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Greetings! August, 2021
My name is Matt Richardson and I am excited to start my 11th year of teaching! I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself, as well as inform you of my vision and goals for this academic year!
I am extremely passionate about science at the middle school level. Middle schoolers are naturally inquisitive and I look to build on that for them to acquire interest and knowledge about science, engineering, and technology. I am looking forward to working along side your student as we take a look at real life problems, relevant and current situations and solving them with a hands-on approach! Much of our class will be grounded in working with other peers to figure out solutions that matter to middle schoolers. I have a few simple goals that both you and your students can expect from me. I will:
present problems and guide students with direction in solving them.
provide a hands-on approach with students doing science/engineering.
providing time to reflect and learn from experiences.
use the power of communication between peers to aid in the learning.
work along side your student as they analyze problems to create solutions.
follow a good science processes to make claims based on proposed questions.
Don’t get me wrong, I also value developing the whole child and developing your student into to a more responsible individual through character building. I hope to do this through focusing on five guidelines I view as important not only for school, but for life and being a scientist/engineer. These are being/giving:
Trustworthy
Truthful
Active Listener
No Put-downs
Personal Best
A little about me, I graduated from Hope College in the summer of 2009. The first two years at Hudsonville I worked at Riley St. Middle School in the science department as a long-term substitute. I now share my time between RMS and BMS, coach 8th grade blue football, and spend time being a family man. My wife, Brieann, and I live in Holland, very close to downtown. We bought a house in 2014. We have done our major projects and are now enjoying the house for now. No house projects planned for the future! We have a son named Brady, who will be five years old in October. We also have a 16 month old boy named Ezra. I am very thankful for my wife and boys. This summer we had a lot of back yard fun. Catching bugs, sprinklers chalk and bubbles, and lots of take from local restaurants. Coming back to school is good, but so is the summer time spent with them. When not teaching or coaching I love enjoying the beauty of the world in which we live. I love to run ( in races and after Ezra) and seem to always be training for something. Notre Dame and da’ Bears are my teams and I hate to say it, but... the Cubs are my baseball team (although now it's not that bad). I love being sustainable with waste at home and at school. Our family tries to compost with a vermiculture bin (worms) which takes care of all our food waste. We recycle as much as we can. And we use cloth napkins to cut down on our paper napkin use.
Last thing: Communication is very important in aiding to your student’s success. With this collaborative effort in mind, I would like to express my willingness to communicate with you. I look forward to keeping in contact with you about your child's development as a student and a person. I promise to:
keeping my Google Classroom current for the week
keeping grades up to date
sending home things that need to come back to school well in advance
always returning your call or email within 24 hours.
In closing, I look forward to joining you in supporting your student to be the best whole individual they can be! I am so excited to have them experience fun, engaging science experiences and I am ready to do my best to make the rest of this year a successful one!
Sincerely,
Mr. Matthew Richardson
Discovery Science Teacher/6th grade science/Theater
Baldwin Street Middle School
email: mrichar@hpseagles.net
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