RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. DeLuca: Four. This is the end of my fourth year.

RamPage: Were you always a Science teacher?

Mrs. DeLuca: Before I worked in Holliston, I spent 13 years working at the Museum of Science. While there, I did a lot of different things, but all related to education. I used to teach live presentations like the animal show, I used to do the lightning show, I did a show with liquid nitrogen called “Super Cold Science”‒ that was really fun! But I also supervised a bunch of high school students and volunteers, and I ran our department for school and youth programs, so that was all our field trips and high school programming. It was good fun.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. DeLuca: Well, I’ll tell you one of the reasons I switched over from working in a museum setting to here. In a museum setting, you don’t get to hang out with the same kids for very long. They come to your lightning show and you say hi, and then they leave. Or at most, it’s a week of summer camp and you see them for five days. But I really like being in an actual classroom and getting to know my students, seeing them mature from day 1 to day 180, seeing them learn new things and watching them grow, and making relationships with the students over time. That’s really fun, and I never got to do that in my old job.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. DeLuca: I don’t know. I guess I always wanted to be in education. I like teaching people new stuff. I did enjoy working in a museum setting because there’s a lot more flexibility with the schedule and the different projects you work on. But teaching in a school is really fun in different ways.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. DeLuca: I don’t know. I thought about being a librarian, but then I’d have to be real quiet all the time, and I don’t think I could do that! I’d also like to work for a big company that has lots of money and gives it away. I’d like to give away other people’s money. I’d like to be a philanthropist.

RamPage: Do you prefer hybrid or in-person learning?

Mrs. DeLuca: In person is so much better. It’s really sad when you’re really excited and talking to a bunch of blank screens! I always wondered, “Are you out there? Can you hear me?” So I definitely love to be in person, especially with science, because we have so many fun, hands-on projects that were much harder to do, if at all, in the hybrid setting. So I had to change a lot of our curriculum to make it less hands-on and less fun. This last month, we’ve done a lot more hands-on!

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. DeLuca: It was quieter in my classroom. Sometimes when you’re in a big, busy room, you can’t always chat with people. I like how with Zoom, the students who were a little bit quieter were more likely to talk to me via chat, so having that option to have people chat in and say things they wouldn’t have said in front of the whole class was nice, and I felt I was able to build relationships with kids who weren’t as big and loud.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. DeLuca: Well, I have three small children, so I hang out with my children a lot and they take up a lot of my time. I like hiking, I like running, I like going to the pond. If I didn’t have small children, I’d do a lot of arts and crafts, like pottery or sewing. I dabble in a lot of miscellaneous crafts, but a lot of that time has been taken up by my small children.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. DeLuca: Right now I have 30 chickens-- we just got 25 babies! That was my husband’s idea. I have three orchid mantises. And right now I’m babysitting the tank full of our pond samples, which includes a salamander nymph and 11 tadpoles and some other interesting pond critters that are all my babies right now.

RamPage: Why did you decide to get orchid mantises?

Mrs. DeLuca: I don’t know! I’ve always thought orchid mantises are really cool because they have really good camouflage because they pretend to be flowers, and then I found out that you can get them as a pet. It was a pandemic purchase. My children really wanted to get cats, but I didn’t think we could handle that!

RamPage: When you found a snake why did you immediately take it into your house?

Mrs. DeLuca: Oh, I forgot about Goyle! Goyle is our pet ringneck snake. He’s very little- like 3 inches long. My husband found him. So in addition to chickens, my husband was growing mealworms in a tank to feed them. My husband threw the snake in with the mealworms because he thought then it would have all the food it wanted, but then it disappeared. I thought maybe it was hibernating because those kinds of snakes do that in the winter, but then winter was over and we could not find him, so I think he may have escaped into our house. He was really cute though! So tiny!

RamPage: Thanks for coming!

Mrs. DeLuca: Thanks for having me!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Mason: This is my second year. Last year, I taught 8th grade, and now I teach 6th.

RamPage: Were you always a Science teacher?

Mrs. Mason: No. After college, I did AmeriCorps, which is like the domestic Peace Corps, where I volunteered on Cape Cod for water and land conservation, and I also did some teaching. After that, I taught for a couple years down on Cape Cod. Then, I worked for a nonprofit teaching, then Merk doing pharmaceutical sales, then I was a veterinary technician, then I was in probiotic sales, and then I went back to teaching. Best decision ever!

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. Mason: Everything. I love my colleagues. I love working with the students. I love trying to make science exciting and not too scary or overwhelming, making it accessible to people who don’t always think science is accessible.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Mason: Yes and no. My mom told me when I was 12 that I was going to be a teacher. I thought I wanted to do scientific research, but when I was in AmeriCorps volunteering, my roommates saw me teaching workshops and they said, “Katie, you need to teach. You were a born teacher.” That’s when I started exploring teaching. But I think I left teaching because as much as I love it, I always had this “What if?” What if I want to be a veterinarian? What if I want to work in medical sales? What if I want to be a nurse? So I was able to explore all of these different things, and then I realized I belong teaching.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Mason: I’d probably be an artist. I love to make things. I love pottery, and I’m doing this new thing called punch needling. I just fell in love with it over Covid!

RamPage: Do you prefer hybrid or in-person learning?

Mrs. Mason: In person! However, only because there’s an energy in the room when you teach. I feed off of other people moving around each other. Some people get more energy from being around a lot of people and some people’s energy gets depleted, and they need quiet space. I need to be in a room. With hybrid, I felt divided between the people in the room and the people at home. I think we did the best we could.

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Mason: Getting to know everybody. It’s the same as a regular school year for me! But I think the online dynamic and chats allowed some students to open up a little bit more than they would have in a classroom full of students. We just connected in a different way.

RamPage: How did the Friyay tradition start?

Mrs. Mason: With you guys! So my kids watch cartoons, and there’s a show on Disney Junior that will say “Happy Fri-Yay!” and I think Friday is a great day to celebrate. We all worked hard all week! So we can keep calling it Friyay!

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. Mason: I love nature, being outdoors, hiking, and road biking. I love learning new hobbies like punch needling. I’m starting to work on propagating new plants‒ taking clippings of little plants and making new ones. I like to do so many different things. I feel like I’m a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type of person.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Mason: Yes! I have a 13-year-old chihuahua named Oscar, and he is a grumpy yet hilarious and sweet little creature.

RamPage: Can you tell us about the animals you worked with in AmeriCorps?

Mrs. Mason: In AmeriCorps, part of my volunteering was with Wellfleet Audubon, and we’d rescue stranded dolphins, whales, and cold-stunned sea turtles. In the winter, when they didn’t get out of Cape Cod Bay fast enough, we’d have to rescue sea turtles. Once I rescued a 75-pound loggerhead, and I had to drive him from Wellfleet all the way to Boston!

RamPage: What is the funniest thing that has happened to you while teaching?

Mrs. Mason: My first year teaching, I taught 8th grade science, and I had this student who should have been an A student, but he just wasn’t working hard. So I finally said to him, “Brad, you need to be an A student. What can we do? You can choose anything.” I had these big science sinks that were shaped like a hexagon in the middle of my room. He said, “I want to sit in the sink,” and I said, “Fine. In two weeks, if you get an A, you can sit in the sink.” Two weeks go by, and guess what he gets? An A. Guess where he gets to sit? In the sink.

RamPage: What happened?

There were two giant faucets that came out of the sink on either side, and every time he’d get out of the sink, he’d pull himself up by those two faucets. I told him, “Brad, you’re going to break them one day. Those aren’t meant to hold your weight!” And he’d say, “Okay, sorry,” and then, the next day he went to get out of the sink, he'd pull on the faucet. But this time, one of them snapped, and I had a 6-foot geyser of water shooting up out of the sink at everybody! I had to crawl under the sink to unscrew a panel and close the valve, and as I’m doing this, I’m getting soaked. I didn’t get in any trouble, but that was the most ridiculous thing that’s ever happened to me teaching, for sure.

RamPage: Thank you for coming!

Mrs. Mason: Thank you!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mr. Vanesian: This is my sixth year teaching in Holliston.

RamPage: Were you always a Math teacher?

Mr. Vanesian: Yeah, so my first job was in West Bridgewater. I taught 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. I taught there for a year, and then I was offered a job in Holliston, which means a lot to me just because I grew up in Holliston. I went to RAMS and have been through the school system, so it was important for me to give back to the town.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mr. Vanesian: I like the connections with kids and watching them grow into high school kids, and then college kids, and then adults, and seeing what they can accomplish. I have a student now who’s a high school intern, so he’s a senior, and it’s so cool to see a student who was 12 years old when I had him, now asking for advice on going to college. It’s a cool experience to be a part of these students’ lives and watch them grow up.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mr. Vanesian: Yes, and people always ask me why. I don’t know what my exact defining moment was, but I shared a room with my little brother when I was a kid growing up, and when I was learning how to read, I was teaching him how to read at the same time. And ever since I was that age, so from the time I can remember, I always wanted to be a teacher. I like the idea of helping people, developing those relationships, and watching them grow both inside the classroom and out of the classroom.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mr. Vanesian: I’d be a basketball coach full-time because it combines the two things I love the most which are teaching and basketball. You get to have that same relationship with people where you get to watch them grow up. I coach at Lasell University in Newton, so you recruit these kids out of high school and then you watch them grow up over four years of college, and then they come back to visit as adults and working in the real world. You get to see them grow up as basketball players and then as human beings. You get to see the impact they have in the world. One of my former players is now teaching, so he and I still connect, and we text each other. He teaches math, so he’ll ask me for advice on things or lessons. So it’s a very similar job [as teaching], but basketball can be a little more fun than math can be!

RamPage: Do you prefer remote learning or in person?

Mr. Vanesian: I would love to teach in person all the time. It’s been a challenge, and I understand the reasoning behind it. And, for safety purposes, I completely get it. But there’s a connection piece that I keep going back to with teaching. It’s hard to do over a laptop… and a lot easier to develop those relationships and help people grow as individuals and as students when you’re in person. It’s a challenge when you’re on Zoom with each other. I like to push myself a little bit, so it’s been fun to try to take what I’ve done for 7 years now and completely flip it and find new things that work. It’s been hard, but it's been a fun challenge.

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mr. Vanesian: I’ve learned more about Zoom than I thought was ever possible. It’s been interesting to be able to develop skills that I didn’t previously have. It’s been fun to be able to try games and new teaching platforms that have helped students learn things and have helped me help those students grow as learners as well. It's nice to figure out that so-and-so is struggling with something because you get that instant feedback from a computer program that you don’t get on paper when it takes a day or two to get back to a student.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mr. Vanesian: I coach basketball at Lasell University. That takes up the majority of my afternoons from about October to March, so that’s kind of my life outside of school. But, when I’m not at Lasell or teaching, I like to take my dog, Winnie, on walks. She's a five-month-old black lab at this point. So that’s my escape from teaching. I won’t bring my phone sometimes, I’ll just be there in the moment, collect myself and get away from the world for a little bit.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mr. Vanesian: My favorite year in my entire school was 4th grade. I had Ms. Rudner, whom I still email back and forth with. I love Ms. Rudner. She was awesome. She made our classroom feel like a community and made us all feel connected to each other. And in 4th grade, you’re coming from all different places— that’s when they combine Montessori and French Immersion— and she brought us all together as a group, and she made school fun. I did Montessori, so that was a fun challenge for me to go back to a traditional style of school. I think that’s why I liked 4th grade a lot. It was fun to be in a classroom with kids your own age instead of first, second, and third grade. I loved the Montessori program, and it was great for me, it helped me develop my math skills and let me develop my English skills as I was going, but I think fourth grade was a fun year because I had my group of friends that I played sports with outside of school.

RamPage: What’s the weirdest thing that has happened in your classroom?

Mr. Vanesian: The weirdest thing is someone called me Mom once and hugged me and told me that they loved me as they left my classroom. Before COVID, I would come up with handshakes with students and we would do handshakes as they left the classroom. As she was leaving my classroom, she hugged me, and said, “I love you Mom, have a good day,” and just walked out. I didn’t really know what was happening, and then about five seconds later, once the student was in the hallway, she screamed, “WHAT DID I JUST DO?” and then ran back into my classroom and was like, “I’m SO sorry!” I said, “It’s okay, I figured you were kind of out of it at this point!” That was probably the weirdest thing. She’s in high school, and every time I see her I still make fun of her for it. It’s one of those things I just won’t ever forget.

RamPage: What is the funniest thing that happened in your classroom?

Mr. Vanesian: I don’t know if it’s the weirdest thing ever, but right off the top of my head, it was two students singing “Love is an Open Door” in the middle of class because it was the first time they agreed on anything. They kind of butted heads a lot, and it was the first time they both agreed on what song they wanted to listen to that day, and I told them the only way they could listen to it was if they sang it as a duet. And it was magical. It was at a time when a lot of us were a little overwhelmed with hybrid learning, and it was just a good moment for all of us to share something funny and bring us together as a group of students and a teacher.

RamPage: Thanks for coming!

Mr. Vanesian: Thanks for having me!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Krause: This is my seventh year... No, it’s my sixth year. I feel like 2020 messed me up. I didn’t know what happened. Was that two years? Was that one year?

RamPage: Were you always a Math and Science teacher?

Mrs. Krause: No, I’ve never been a math teacher before this year. This is my very first year teaching Math, and it is an adventure. I’m learning the ropes, though, and I’m getting better at math myself, so I do like that.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. Krause: I like getting to talk to kids. I love science, so I love teaching the science, but I also love getting to joke around and have fun with the kids.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Krause: No, my first job was as an environmental scientist. I worked for the state, for the Department of Environmental Protection, and that year there were budget cuts in the state, and I got laid off. I ended up teaching as a substitute, and the rest is history. I ended up getting sucked in and becoming a teacher and enjoying it tremendously.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Krause: If I could be anything, it would be a surgeon. I have regrets that I was scared to go that medical route because that’s a huge commitment.

What is your favorite section in 7th grade?

I am NOT answering that question! I’m not looking for trouble, so I will plead the fifth.

What is your favorite science topic this year?

I can’t wait for us to do ecology. I used to always teach Life Science, like just Biology all year, until I came to Holliston. And Ecology is one of my favorite units, and it will be spring time, so those of us who are remote will get to do a lot of outdoor observation and exploration. So I’m looking forward to that.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mrs. Krause: Oh, I way prefer teaching in person. Hybrid is… there are things that I do like about it, but just the screen management and all the things you have to look at at once are just very distracting from actually teaching your subject. That’s what I don’t like about it. I work very hard to try to be good at it, and to try to make everything run smoothly, but it is too much juggling in my opinion.

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Krause: I like getting to see the personal side of each other’s life, I’m really familiar with everybody’s house and their pets, and we get to share more personal stuff. We also get to do more. It’s easier to go outside and try things, or change things up in a remote environment, because I don’t even do hybrid: I just do remote.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. Krause: I love mycology, and that is identifying mushrooms and foraging, so I like to go out and find edible plants and medicinal plants and fungi and really learn how to identify and use things in the environment. There’s a lot of free food all around us, and it’s very interesting to me to learn what’s there and what resources there are. And then I also love kayaking in the summer. And my other hobby is video games and dog stuff.

Who is your favorite singer?

Oh, that’s hard, because you know I’m a really big music fan. I would say my favorite band is The Cure, which is old so you probably don’t know it. Robert Smith of The Cure.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Krause: Yes I do! I have Potato the one-year-old terrier, but we call him a terrorist. He is a Miniature Pincher Jack Russell Rat Terrier, and he is trouble! Then I have Joyce, who is my docile and loyal Chihuahua-Poodle-Dachshund-Cocker-Spaniel. She doesn’t look like any of those things— she looks like a Jack Russell Terrier. And I have a fish named Raphael. He’s a beta fish.

RamPage: What is your favorite season of the year?

Mrs. Krause: I love spring. I love when everything is coming back up again and coming to life. It’s so nice to finally get back outside again and really spend a lot of time out there. My favorite thing to do is to take my dogs into the woods— mushroom hunting, checking out nature—I could do it all day, every day.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mrs. Krause: My favorite grade was probably 3rd grade because I had my favorite teacher, Mrs. Shine, and I was a kid who really, really loved reading, and she would always come up with special books and things for me to read, and we would talk about the books I’d been reading. I always cherished 3rd grade.

RamPage: In an old edition of The Rampage, you mentioned a hissing cockroach. Can you tell us that story?

Mrs. Krause: I had a hissing cockroach, and it was my nemesis, and it was in the classroom. My friend’s mom was the science coordinator, and she dropped it off at my classroom, and said, “Oh, I really thought you'd like to have this in there,” and I said “NO! I would not like to have this! I hate him! I want him gone!” So I would just stare at the cockroach and [growl] “COCKROACH.” I had kids take care of the cage and stuff because I did NOT want to touch the cockroach. And I’m squeamish about just about nothing. And then when it finally passed away, I paid a kid in Dunkin’ Donuts to get rid of the body, because even though it was no longer alive, I did not want to touch the cockroach. So I bribed children in Dunkin’ Donuts and they did my dirty work.

RamPage: Did it ever escape?

It didn’t escape, but it got taken out. The cockroach was the source of much stress. There was a year I had a substitute and I was not in the classroom. And one of the kids took the cockroach out, and all the kids went screaming down the hallway, running away from the cockroach and they had to round everybody up and get the cockroach back in. I was not in the classroom. That would not have happened if Mrs. Krause were in the classroom! Someone took advantage. This is why nothing shocks me.

RamPage: Thank you for coming, Mrs. Krause!

Mrs. Krause: Thank you for choosing me to interview!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Soto: Sixteen!

RamPage: Were you always a Math teacher?

Mrs. Soto: I was not! Well, I’ve always taught math, but I’ve also taught Social Studies and Science. Back in the day, they used to have three-person teams, so we would teach our main subject, which was Math, and then we would teach one Social Studies class, which was kind of crazy. And then there were a few years when I taught Math and Science. And now I’ve been teaching just Math for the past four or five years.

RamPage: What is your favorite math song?

Mrs. Soto: My favorite math song is the mean, median, and mode song from Study Jams. It’s pretty catchy.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. Soto:I like that every day is different, that my students make it fun, that they keep me on my toes, and make things different and exciting.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Soto: No, not necessarily. I went to college to be an engineer, and my degree was in civil engineering, and I thought that’s what I was going to do when I graduated college. But, I ended up substitute teaching and really enjoyed it and ended up finding a job in Holliston, and I’ve stayed there ever since!

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Soto: Well, I used to be a wedding photographer on the side, and I really enjoyed doing that, but it got to be a bit too much to try to do the photography and teaching, so I haven’t done that in a few years. I would love to do something with photography. Back when I was a kid, I used to want to be a photographer for National Geographic Magazine and travel the world and take lots of pictures. But I think I’ll stick to teaching for now.

RamPage: What is your favorite Shakira song? Is she your favorite singer?

Mrs. Soto: I do like her, but I don’t think she’s my favorite singer. I’m a big country fan normally. My favorite Shakira song is “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).” It’s from the Soccer World Cup a couple years back.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mrs. Soto: Oh, I definitely prefer teaching in person. It’s a lot easier to make connections in person. However, like days like today where we had a remote day just because of the snow, it was nice to be able to see everyone all at the same time, without our masks on. It’s nice to have those days once in a while, those breaks. But I definitely prefer to see all of you in person and interact with all of you in person.

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Soto: Well… I am learning a lot of new things about technology that I never knew I would need to know! It’s hard. But I think we’re all learning new ways to communicate with each other, to help each other, to try to make the best of it. We’re all becoming masters at Zoom for sure!

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. Soto: I make LEGOs with my 6-year old. I spend a lot of time with my family. We like to be adventurous. In the summertime, we love to go to the beach or go in our pool. I used to snowboard. I haven’t been as much recently, but I would like to get back to it. We like to just stay as a family, going hiking, going for walks, going exploring. I like to travel a lot, I just haven’t done it in the past year!

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Soto: I don’t. We used to have a boxer named Knuckles, a dog, and he passed away two years ago. We haven’t gotten a new pet since then. Our two kids are four and six, and they keep us busy enough without a pet right now!

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mrs. Soto: I think it was fifth grade. I really liked my fifth grade teacher. I liked what I was learning. I was really starting to learn about myself more as a learner and how to study more, how to write essays, how to do harder math. It was a lot of fun, and my teacher was always funny. I think I liked school all the time, though. I never had a year that was awful. I was a little nerd!

RamPage: Thanks so much for coming!

Mrs. Soto: You're welcome!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Multer: This will be my 20th year [at the middle school], but I spent a year in Natick at Kennedy Middle School, and before I did that, I substituted for a year and a half long-term at Miller. Before that, I was a preschool substitute teacher for the community preschool because my kids were there. It was a trip because I met kids when they were three, and then I met them when they showed up in my 8th grade math class when they were thirteen.

RamPage: Were you always a Math teacher?

Mrs. Multer: No, I hated math! When I graduated from college, I was actually an elementary school teacher, 1st through 6th grade I could teach, and the last thing I wanted to teach was middle school because I was afraid of those kids because they’re crazy like I am, and I didn’t want math because I never felt like I understood it. But it was the only job they had, so I took it.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. Multer: Oh, that’s a no-brainer: the kids! There’s no way I would be doing what I’m doing this year if it wasn’t for the kids. When I feel like I can’t do this one more moment, I just log into Zoom and I see all my kids, and that’s the best part of my day. I love how middle schoolers are unpredictable and sassy and fresh and full of life, full of ideas.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Multer: Yup! Both of my parents were teachers. My dad always was a teacher, and my mom was never allowed to go to college because her parents at the time said they thought that educating a girl was a waste of money and time. She was older, so when she graduated from high school at 16, she went to work, and then she met my dad. So after she had my brother and my sister and me, and she stayed home a little while, my father said to her, and his mother said, "We’re sending you to college." And that was unheard of, to be 35 years old and go to college during the ‘60s. So my mom went to school and became a teacher. I saw my parents go to school every day and they had a smile on their face. They came home, and they weren’t smiling as much. But I’d hear all their stories about these crazy kids, and how my parents thought it was such a kick, and I thought, "That’s got to be the best job in the world." But there were no teaching jobs when I graduated from college, so I taught in industry— I taught people how to use some of the very first personal computers. I flew all over the country. I worked for three or four different companies, and I taught, and that’s when I knew, I want to get back to teaching kids.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Multer: I would honestly love to work at a company like Pixar or another animation company. I would love to combine my love for drawing and my love for computers. I actually have a student who is now 29, and he works at Pixar! He wrote to me that he was one of the lead animators for Coco and Cars 2 and 3. It’s awesome.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mrs. Multer: I hate this. I prefer in person. I think that teaching is a science and an art, and I think we lose parts of both being remote and being hybrid. I miss sitting next to a kid and looking at their work and joking around with them. I miss kids talking to you as if you’re their friend or if they have a problem. All that’s lost. I miss it because I don’t see my friends. I haven’t been away from Mrs. Conahan for 20 years— and I’ve been on her team for 20 years. And it’s really hard for me to be away from my friends. As soon as I get that vaccination— batten down the hatches— Mrs. Multer’s coming in!

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Multer: The best is when you see kids just goofing around in their own house! Like when we play the morning songs and they’re dancing, and their parents are dancing in the room and you can see them! That’s cool. I love seeing everybody’s pets, and I actually like having my pet with me. Sometimes it calms me down. Nobody likes living in a pandemic, right? But the minute you’re holding your cat or dog, you see every kid’s— and it’s all dogs or all cats! Not only do I know all the kids now, I know all the pets’ names. And there are so many French bulldogs and Boston terriers on my team!

RamPage: What hobbies do you like to do outside of school?

Mrs. Multer: My kids say this is not a hobby, but it is. I read all the time. I think I read, on average, about two novels a week. I love to read. If I’m not working, I’m reading. If you can find a book that you love, it just transports you away from your world. And my parents were big readers, so I just read, read, read. And kids are great because they give me all those young adult books, which are amazing, so I’m reading a lot more.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Multer: I’ve had dogs, but my earliest memory of a dog was when the sheriff came to our house with a rifle because my mother kept letting the dog go outside, and he would kill all the prize roosters— because I grew up in the country— and they kept telling her to tie the dog up, and she wouldn’t because she wanted him to be free! So I never got a dog again because I was heartbroken. So I have a cat. Now I have Hudson, and he is getting very large during Covid. He’s a Hurricane Sandy survivor, so he’s traumatized, and he eats too much.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mrs. Multer: I think 3rd grade. I had this teacher, Mrs. Irma Davis, and she read us Pippi Longstocking every day in all these voices, and I thought she was the most amazing person. I was enamored by her. She had a really deep voice, and she’d [growl] “PIPPI!,” and I’d say, “Oh, this woman! She’s crazy!” I loved that grade.

RamPage: What is the weirdest thing that ever happened to you while teaching?

Mrs. Multer: First year of teaching, I had a boy named Ryan come up to me, and there was blood dripping down his arm, and I said, “My god, Ryan! What happened?” and he opened up his fist, and there were three teeth in there. Three teeth! And I said, “What happened?!” And he said, “Well this one was loose, so I pulled it. And this one was kinda loose, so I pulled that. And this one was just annoying me, so I pulled that.” And I thought, “Woah. I love 6th grade. These people are wild.” I’ll never forget it— there was blood everywhere. I didn’t even see it happen! He just pulled all his teeth out!

RamPage: If you could change one thing about RAMS what would it be?

Mrs. Multer: If I could change one thing about RAMS right now, I would wave a magic wand and make Covid be over so we could all get back into the building together. It’s a great place to work in general. I have no complaints. If we have a big dome, like a geodesic dome, or a force field, and we’re all in there, I wouldn’t mind being in there. Forever! I just want to be out in the world again. That would be my wish.

RamPage: It was fun interviewing you!

Mrs. Multer: It was fun seeing how much you’ve grown! Thank you!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mr. Rollins: This is my 9th year.

RamPage: Were you always a Science teacher?

Mr. Rollins: Yes, although I did teach one year of Science and Math at the same time, but I have always done Science.

RamPage: How did you teach Science and Math at the same time?

Mr. Rollins: It was last year. You know how each grade has two big teams and one small team? I was on the small team last year and what would actually happen was I would have the students two times a day, but have them once for Science and once for Math, And then there was one other teacher who did the same thing for English and Social Studies.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mr. Rollins: Actually, no, this is my second career. When I graduated from college, my first main job was working in a lab and I worked for some people who studied Earth Science and volcanoes and things like that, and so I actually worked in a lab at Columbia University for about 6 years before I switched to become a teacher.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mr. Rollins: How realistic do I have to be?

RamPage: You cannot be an avocado.

Mr. Rollins: That wasn’t on the top of my list. If I could just be anything I think I would be a musician. I think it would be cool to be the acoustic singer-songwriter type

RamPage: Like Taylor Swift!

Mr. Rollins: Yeah.

RamPage: Do you prefer remote learning or in person?

Mr. Rollins: In person. I think what we are doing right now is trying to be safe for everyone, but if I could go back to the kind of teaching we have always done before this, just being in person is much better- doing science experiments and things like that.

RamPage: What are your favorite parts of hybrid learning?

Mr. Rollins: That’s the hardest question so far I think! It’s forced us to be a little bit creative in how we’re delivering the information, but it’s not the way I would prefer to do it… I guess in some ways it's nice only having 10-12 people in front of you all at a time. Even though there are 10-12 people in person and 10-12 people at home, I like the feel of the small class without hopefully leaving the people at home out too much.

RamPage: What is your favorite Taylor Swift song?

Mr. Rollins: My favorite Taylor Swift song? You expect me to choose just one?

RamPage: Or you could also do an album, like Reputation or Red or Lover.

Mr. Rollins: Not Reputation! We’re going to pretend that Reputation didn’t happen. This is a difficult question. I guess for now, I’m going to go with “All Too Well.” It’s a little bit of an older song. I lean heavily towards early Taylor Swift, like Taylor- Swift-with-an-acoustic-guitar, which is why I don’t like Reputation. The one that came out this summer was very acoustic, so I liked it.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mr. Rollins: I haven’t been camping in a while, but I like hiking. I like outdoorsy things, especially since my background is in Earth Science. I like Boston sports, following sports teams. I do like to do a little bit of music, I haven’t done much recently, but I play piano and guitar.

RamPage: What is your favorite sports team?

Mr. Rollins: Can I give a three-way tie? Bruins, Patriots, and Red Sox.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mr. Rollins: I do not. Growing up, the rest of my family had allergies, so we never really had pets. We had hermit crabs at one point. My mother taught preschool for a number of years, so she got hermit crabs for her class that she would bring home over vacations. And over one of the vacations- you know how hermit crabs move out of smaller shells into bigger shells as they grow? Well, there were two hermit crabs, and I guess one decided it liked the other’s home better, so it murdered it and moved into the other shell. I know. It was kind of sad, actually. That was the last time we had pets.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mr. Rollins: If college counts, I would definitely say college because you get to not only spend a lot of time living with other students and things like that, but you also have a pretty heavy say in the classes that you take, so you get to take a lot of classes that you like. After that, I would say junior or senior year of high school.

RamPage: Do you have anything else to add?

Mr. Rollins: Thank you for having me!

RamPage: Thank you!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Piercy: Just one. I’ve been here less time than my students have!

RamPage: Were you always an English teacher?

Mrs. Piercy: I was! My first year teaching, I taught leadership seminar which was really weird, but it basically taught kids about how to get jobs, but I still taught 8th grade. All my students wanted to be professional rappers and actors and all that crazy stuff. This is my fourth year teaching, and my third year teaching English.

RamPage: Where were you teaching before?

Mrs. Piercy: I taught at a small school called DuBois Middle School and it is back near where I grew up in Pennsylvania, close to the Ohio border, about an hour and a half straight north of Pittsburg.

RamPage: What do you like most about teaching English?

Mrs. Piercy: Getting kids to like reading. Whenever a kid comes in and says they don’t really like reading that much and that they’ve never found a book that they like, then all of a sudden I’ll be reading a book in class and they’ll be like, “Can you read us another chapter?” That's my favorite part about teaching English. I love helping kids find books that they like because that's just the most fun part of teaching English.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Piercy: Yeah, pretty much! Whenever I was a little kid, I would force my sister to play “school” with me, where I was the teacher and she was the student. It made her really smart because all summer she was doing school. It was really miserable for her! I’d make her do math problems and read all summer, every year. I have always wanted to be a teacher. When I got into college, I definitely had my doubts for a little while, but once I started student teaching, I knew I had picked the right profession.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Piercy: That’s a hard one. Honestly, I don’t know! I love teaching! Maybe like a detective or something? I have always loved true crime books and stuff like that. I was a huge Law and Order junkie as a kid and listened to true crime podcasts every single day. I’m a big armchair sleuth. I love listening to true crime stuff. I would be a cop or something- it’s so different from my current job, but it’s a big interest of mine! It wouldn’t be nearly as fun, though.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mrs. Piercy: I don’t like it. I feel like I am trying really hard to make it good despite my distaste for it. I’m trying really hard to make it a fun year, but I can’t do any of the fun stuff that I used to do with my students. I like it because I still like my job and I’ve never disliked teaching, even during this crazy school year. I’m still enjoying teaching and my students- it’s such a great group of students this year! They’re so well-read and fun to talk to. But it’s hard to be up in front of them every day, whereas I used to just be kind of in the background while they would talk and discuss and work together. I don’t love it, but I’m making the best of it.

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Piercy: Open mic. One of the other English teachers in 8th grade, Mrs. Farese, does open mic, and I stole this idea from her. So every Wednesday, my students read a piece of their writing out loud, and at first they were really nervous about it, and I was really nervous about it because I wasn’t sure how well it would work. When my students at home are trying to listen to the students in person, I thought that might be really hard to hear or they wouldn’t want to talk through a screen, but it’s going great! Every time students do open mic, they just do it flawlessly. And we’ve created a routine where it works, and I look forward to Wednesdays every day.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. Piercy: I love traveling. I basically spend all of my money on traveling! It’s been really hard to do recently because of covid, so I haven’t done it in a long time. But it is my favorite hobby, and I’ve spent quarantine just dreaming of destinations. I was supposed to go to Sydney, Australia over Thanksgiving break, and it’s not going to happen now, which is totally understandable. It’s okay. I want to be safe and I don’t want to get sick, so I’m fine without going, but it’s something I’m looking forward to.

RamPage: Do you have any quarantine hobbies?

Mrs. Piercy: I’ve always played piano and guitar, and those are things that I’ve stopped doing as much in college and in my career because I started living in apartments and they’re loud activities, and people get annoyed. But now I’ve taken them up again, like I’ve started playing piano every day now that I’m home a little bit earlier from work. I’ve learned a lot of new songs.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Piercy: I do! I have one dog and one cat. I have a black dog named Luna and an orange cat named Calvin.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mrs. Piercy: I think maybe 5th grade. I had a lot of fun in 5th grade because I went to a tiny little school that was literally in the middle of a cornfield. Because it was really small, we got to do a lot of fun things during our last year at the elementary school. They would take us to the skating rink every day for a week, and I had a class size of 12 kids, so we were just best friends and got to hang out, and our teachers would let us go outside every day.

RamPage: Thank you so much for being here and letting us interview you!

Mrs. Piercy: Thank you!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mrs. Going: It’s my 6th year!

RamPage: Were you always a Social Studies teacher?

Mrs. Going: Yes, I have always taught 6th grade Social Studies, my whole teaching career.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mrs. Going: I like being able to meet so many different kids, and I like being able to see students grow from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And even more than that, I love being a 6th grade teacher, and I get to see my students later in 7th grade and 8th grade and see my students change and be more comfortable with themselves, and it just makes me really happy, so I like it a lot.

RamPage: What is your favorite Sustainable Development Goal?

Mrs. Going: This is tough. So I have two favorites, is that allowed? My first favorite is quality education, because I’m a teacher! And I really like the idea of education giving opportunity, and I think that quality education helps get that opportunity to more people. But then second, very close behind, is gender equality. I have a daughter, and I want her to be treated equally to men, and that’s something I think is really important.

RamPage: What is your favorite SS unit to teach?

Mrs. Going: Honestly, I think it’s the unit we’re in right now with the hominids. I love hominids. I think they’re so fun, and I love how excited kids get about hominids.

RamPage: What is your favorite hominid, and why?

Mrs. Going: My favorite is Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) because I love that we know so much about her specifically, like how she died falling out of a tree, and if only she had opposable thumbs, she could have held on, but she didn’t! I just love her story, that we know about her.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mrs. Going: No. I had no idea what I wanted to be. When I went to college, I went to college undeclared, which means you don’t have any focus, you just hope it works out! I wanted to be a doctor for a little bit, I wanted to be a lawyer for a little bit, and then I kept coming back to loving my history classes, so I thought maybe I should do something with history. And I thought, “Oh! A history teacher! I’ve always loved my history teachers!” and that’s how I got there.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mrs. Going: You know what I would want to be? I would want to be the secretary at a doctor’s office. It would be so nice. You get to meet a lot of people, and I would like to work with adults, just do my job, and not do anything at home. That would be great.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mrs. Going: I think that’s a hard question to answer because I like getting to see you guys and I can tell that kids really like being in person, which makes me happy to see that. But I would feel a little safer at home just because the virus makes me nervous sometimes. And I really like being able to see the kids, but being remote and not having to wear a mask and able to drink coffee while I teach would be very nice as well!

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mrs. Going: Well, I like the smaller classes, you’re able to get to kids a little bit better when you’re split into smaller groups. I like that I don’t have to make tons of copies and waste a bunch of paper, and I like that kids are excited to be in my classroom.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like doing outside of school?

Mrs. Going: I have two little kids so I like doing stuff with them like playing outside or going for a walk. I enjoy coffee, and I also like cooking.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mrs. Going: I do have pets. I have a really chubby dog named Cameron Diaz. She’s also a blonde.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mrs. Going: I loved second grade. I had a really nice teacher, she was very young and she used to Irish step dance, which I thought was really cool.

RamPage: Mrs. Going, we’ve learned so much about you! Thank you so much for coming!

Mrs. Going: Of course! This was fun!

RamPage: How many years have you worked in Holliston?

Mr. Cotter: I think this is my 8th year.

RamPage: Were you always a Computer Science teacher?

Mr. Cotter: I was a Social Studies teacher for 6 years, and this is my second year doing Tech Integration and Computer Science.

RamPage: What do you like most about your job?

Mr. Cotter: I like learning new things about technology. There’s something new for me every day- almost no day is the same. I get to work with Mrs. Cortis, and we do a lot of different problem solving where we don’t know the answer right away and we kind of have to work together to figure out the best thing to do.

RamPage: What is your favorite thing to teach or to code?

Mr. Cotter: I like doing a lot of the robotics stuff. I think it’s really cool that you can design your own robot and then make it move. There are so many cool robotic products in people’s homes now, like the irobot vacuum, and they’ll wash your floor, and I just think it’s cool that in middle school you’re learning the basics of products like that.

RamPage: Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

Mr. Cotter: I actually did want to be a teacher, ever since I was in middle school I was interested in being a teacher. So I went to college and got my degree in history but knew I wanted to be a teacher.

RamPage: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be instead?

Mr. Cotter: I always had a secret desire to be a police officer! But I’m not tough enough or brave enough.

RamPage: What is your opinion on hybrid learning?

Mr. Cotter: Hybrid is a challenge. I prefer teaching in person, but I know that we all have to be safe, so we’ll make hybrid the best it can be!

RamPage: What are some highlights of hybrid learning?

Mr. Cotter:I still think that kids, when they figure something out that was hard, they’re still really pumped, and I just like to see kids succeeding.

RamPage: As a Computer Science teacher, what computer programs or technology have you been helping with for hybrid learning?

Mr. Cotter: We had to set up all of your teachers with their extra computers and Zoom on their laptops and ipads, so a lot of our time at the beginning of the year was getting all of that set up and teaching your teachers how to do it. We’d run into some problems and then we’d have to go back and figure out how to teach it better. We helped teachers with programs like PearDeck and Gimkit and EdPuzzle, and we made how-to videos for your teachers with Google Classroom and PowerSchool and all that kind of stuff.

And then, when all of that stuff is out of the way, we’re going to look at how to get computer science in all of your other classes. Like, can you use robots in your math class? Can you do web design when you’re designing a project for English? And so, once we get all this other stuff out of the way with hybrid learning, that’s what we’re going to start doing.

RamPage: What hobbies do you like to do outside of school?

Mr. Cotter: I like to play golf, I like to go to the beach, I like to see friends that I’ve had for a long time. I like to do stuff with my kids over the weekend-- we’ll go hiking, we like to go check out barns because my kids really like animals, stuff like that. Adulthood isn’t as super exciting as you guys think!

RamPage: Have you played any video games? Which ones?

Mr. Cotter: I used to play a ton of video games when I was in high school and college. FIFA is my favorite still. When I was in college, I played Call of Duty, but since I’ve had kids my video game playing has gone down exponentially.

RamPage: Do you have any pets?

Mr. Cotter: We have a pony. Her name is Twinkle.

RamPage: When you were younger, what was your favorite grade?

Mr. Cotter: My favorite grade was 6th grade, and it’s mostly because I really liked my 6th grade teacher. She was really fun, but she wouldn’t let us give up, and she made us feel really good about ourselves.

RamPage: What is your favorite season, and why?

Mr. Cotter: Easy question. Fall! Because it’s not too hot, not too cold, and you get to wear nice, fall sweaters.

RamPage: Thank you so much!

Mr. Cotter: Thanks, guys!