By Megan Joyce, Staff Writer
March 29, 2023
ROCKLAND- Mr. Richard Little, an RHS alumnus from the class of 1960, joined Rockland High School this year as an MCAS prep teacher. He is hoping to help students excel in the math MCAS this May after taking the new course.
Mr. Little stumbled upon teaching by accident.
“I didn’t train to become a teacher. I trained to become an engineer, it was a long time ago, the Vietnam War came along and I was waiting to be drafted. Then, someone had mentioned Rockland was looking for substitute teachers,” he explained.
When in high school, Mr. Little admits to “not being the best student” but engineering always interested him. So, he went to Wentworth Institute of technology for two years as class of 1962. Then Northeastern University for two more years as the class of 1965.
In between, he got married at 20 years old and had two children. He described this as being, “a little bit stressful.”
Mr. Little accepted a substitute teaching job at Rockland after college and while waiting to be drafted during the first year of the Vietnam war in 1966. After a year of substituting at Rockland, Mr. Little was offered a contract.
At Rockland, he taught math from 1967 to 1969. Right after, he moved to Holbrook and taught math and science for 16 years.
Mr. Little is also a published author and has written four books, which are available on Amazon.
For the last twelve years, Mr. Little has been teaching elementary math to college students wanting to become elementary teachers at Massasoit Community College. He explained that when COVID hit most teachers at Massasoit had their number of classes cut in half.
“I was teaching four classes, and because of COVID, those things got reduced so I was only teaching one class. I wanted to work more than that,” Mr. Little described.
Mr. Little tutored MCAS in the spring of 2022 at Rockland High, so when he heard about the MCAS prep course, he applied.
Mr. Little explained how a lot has changed here at Rockland High School, from the time he graduated till now.
“There was a big change in the school and the attitude of the students,” he claimed.
Many students and teachers alike find Mr. Little to be a lovable and kind-hearted person.
Colin McKenna, a sophomore taking the class, describes Mr. Little as “super sweet and [that] he listens to questions and he explains [the answer] well.”
Katherine Mini, another sophomore currently in a class, agrees.
She said, “He takes time to get to know students.”
Mr. Casagrande, math teacher, and math department chair explain that Mr. Little is very well equipped to teach the prep class.
“He worked for the state doing the MCAS, he was the MCAS Coordinator in Brockton. He has a lot of experience with MCAS,” Mr. Casagrande said.
The math department is hoping that Mr Little's class will improve scores for this year’s sophomores taking the MCAS math test.
Mr. Casagrande explains how the class came to be, “We saw that there was a need for all students to take a review of Algebra and Geometry.“ he said.
He added, “For all the decisions we make on MCAS we look at the data from middle school as well as the year before [a particular grade].”
The math department has high hopes for the results of the class.
Mrs. Mulready, a math teacher, says the class will definitely help, adding that Mr. Little is “ a fabulous choice as the teacher to do it.”
For instance, the current sophomores are required to take the class because of the previous scores that the current juniors and seniors received. This could be attributed to the COVID pandemic.
This will also affect the current freshman class. Erin Maroney, a freshman who will take the course next year, expects the class to be, “boring but helpful,” from what she has heard.
Despite this, the sophomores feel prepared for their test.
McKenna agrees that he does feel more prepared because “[Mr. Little] taught me many things that I’ve forgotten from Geometry,” he said.
This was exactly what Mr. Casagrande and Mr. Little are hoping for.