For the month of February, the Myers Park Hoofprint has chosen math teacher Ms. Blackert to highlight as the Teacher of the Paper. Ms. Blackert grew up here in Charlotte, North Carolina, graduating from Olympic High School and obtaining her college degree at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She has been teaching for twenty-seven years for the Charlotte Mecklenburg School system, nineteen of those spent at Myers Park thus far. She teaches Math 3 and IB Analysis & Approaches SL 2, and gave the Myers Park Hoofprint a little bit of information about the classes and herself.
- What material does your class(es) consist of?
Ms. Blackert’s classes are essential for most students at Myers Park, as Math 3 is a requirement to graduate, and IB Analysis & Approaches SL 2 is one of the math courses senior IB students can take to fulfill their math credit. However, they are both still stimulating classes for students to improve their mathematical abilities. Ms. Blackert explained that in IB Analysis & Approaches SL 2, the students learn about “logarithms and exponentials, some calculus things related to those functions, a lot of trigonometry, and a little bit of statistics.” In Math 3, students learn about “Piecewise and linear functions, quadratics, a little bit of logarithms and exponentials, a little bit of statistics, and a little bit of rational functions, but nothing to the degree that we do in Sl 2.”
- Why should students sign up for your class?
While Math 3 is non-negotiable, Ms. Blackert explained the appeal of IB Analysis & Approaches SL 2 for students deciding which IB math to take, calling it a “good middle of the road math.” “It’s not the hardest, but it’s also not the easiest, and it has more applications to what people may want to do in college.”
- What is your favorite part about teaching at Myers Park?
“The math department, they are just all-around very supportive in every way that a teacher needs to be supported,” Ms. Blackert said, extendeding that support to the administration as well. She also loves bonding with the students at Myers Park, stating that she “really enjoys the diversity of the students” across all levels of math.
- If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would you have dinner with?
Ms. Blackert provided two answers for this question. Her immediate answer was David Hudspeth, a former Myers Park teacher who died about two years ago. Ms. Blackert expressed her fondness for the teacher, stating that she “really misses him.” Her second answer was Martin Luther King Jr, who she says would be “really cool” to sit down with.
You can visit Ms. Blackert in room SC20 to learn more!