It is always a joy to have new teachers come into the building and became part of the cougar faculty and family. There are awesome teachers at this school with amazing personalities. Listening to their stories and seeing their passion for teaching makes us students proud to call North Providence High School our school. We know that there are teachers that want to teach us and teachers that care.

Now if you’re like any regular student at the school, unless you have Physical Education, you probably haven’t set foot in the technical part of the school, but trust me that’s where all the fun happens. Students are given the chance to immerse themselves in hands-on projects that educationally benefit their brains, their ability to think critically, and make decisions. There has been a new teacher added to our team here at NPHS: Mrs. Mattera! Our new Robotics teacher!

In an interview we had with her we learn all about how she learned about the job here at NPHS and what interested her in trying out for the job.

Reporter 1: How did you first hear about the job here at NPHS?

Mrs. Mattera : I heard about the job from Mrs. Bennett, the assistant principal at one of the elementary schools. I grew up with her son and I had mentioned that I was graduating with a Tech-Ed. degree and she said that they were looking to expand the Tech Ed. department. She recommended that I put an application in so I did and look at me now. (She laughs) 🙂

Reporter 1: How did you first get into liking Robotics?

Mrs. Mattera :  When I was in high school I took a CADD (computer-aided design and drafting) class and a video production class and fell in love with it. I found it very interesting. It seemed to have endless opportunities but then I went to school for film studies and I went to LA and tried to become a big movie director. That didn’t work so then after that I decided I needed a good back up and I thought teaching was a great backup so I went back to school and got my Tech Ed. degree.

Reporter 1: What was your first class here at NPHS like?

Mrs. Mattera : Well right now I have one robotics class and a design and engineering class and they’ve been really interesting. North Providence high school has such a diverse population and you have to adjust. You must learn to work to everybody’s needs because not everybody is a visual learner or someone who learns by reading a text so I had to change my lesson plans a bit and change some of the ideas that I had about teaching but so far it’s been great, the kids here are great and the other faculty members are wonderful. No complaints.

Reporter 1: What are you doing in the classes specifically?

Mrs. Mattera: In Robotics the students are using Lego Mind Storm kits and those are probably the most basic type of robot. We’re going to go through that first since its only a half-year class. So first quarter we’re going to do the Mind Storm robots, the second quarter we’re going to get into coding which is really difficult for a lot of students because it’s a lot of memorization and math. For example, if you have a space in the wrong spot your code won’t work so its very detail oriented, which is something I think high schoolers struggle with, detail and organization, so we’re going to do that quarter two and then for our final I’d like to maybe integrate the two and have a nice big final project.

Reporter 1: What are you looking forward to, going on? 

Mrs. Mattera: Well I’m looking forward to hopefully being around for a while. I would like to get another 3D printer that is my biggest hope. We also have an underwater robot so I’d like to get that up and running. We have a lot of technology in here it’s just nothing is up and running yet so my goal by the end of this year and/or next year is to have all the equipment up and running and accessible to students all over the building.

Reporter 1: What would you like to say to the students that you already have or might be having?

Mrs. Mattera: I would like to tell the students that even if you’ve already taken a robotics class or design engineering class to take another one with me because we are totally changing what we are doing down here it’s all hands on now. There are so many different projects and activities so if that’s something your into, take robotics or design engineering and next fall we’ll be adding Photoshop with state of the art computers. These are the best ones in the district so that’s an added plus.

Reporter 1: What would you like to say to the teachers that you’re going to be working along side of?

Mrs. Mattera: Hi!

Mrs. Mattera is a truly vibrant teacher with an amazing personality, it was a pleasure to interview her and it will be truly amazing to see how she grows into a better teacher and person.