Dennis Martin, math teacher and student council leader at Oak Hills High School, is incredibly invested in many aspects of student enjoyment. Martin explains that his inspiration to enter high school education stems from his family. When asked why Martin entered teaching, he refers to his family as “a teaching family.” In his early life, he was greatly inspired by his grandfather because he was a high school teacher & a football coach, which explains why Martin is deeply involved in Oak Hills athletics. During Martin’s career at Oak Hills, he coached softball and wrestling. However, Martin now calculates statistics for football and basketball. He also leads study tables for boys’ basketball while announcing for girls soccer. When I asked why he invests so much time and energy into athletics, Martin explained that “the enjoyment again is just seeing students in a different light. Getting to see them out of the classroom and getting to see them in a different light. Watching them represent our school and compete is pretty cool.” Overall, Martin has become devoted to students outside of the classroom, which ultimately benefited their learning experience inside the school.
From an educational standpoint, Martin graduated from Warn John F. Kennedy High School and The Ohio State University. During his years at The Ohio State University, Martin was a teacher assistant, spending his time running a small classroom for commonly-credit math classes. When asked to explain his role at Ohio State, Martin explains, “They would meet two to three times a day in a lecture of like 500 students where there would be a professor that would talk at them for you know, 50 minutes. I led what was called a recitation class and in that class, I handled any question on the homework students had and then I would write and give quizzes each week. So I met with them twice a week…The kids in the recitation would tend to come to see me more than they would the professor since they were smaller classes.” By teaching at Ohio State, it was easy for Martin to adjust to Oak Hills’s size. His high school graduating class consisted of 72 people. Therefore, his jump from high school to college was quite drastic. For example, when Martin first began teaching at Oak Hills High School, over 3,000 people made the student body. As a result, Oak Hills was the largest school in Ohio. Martin claims that “the experience of being in front of a group of students and being able to answer whatever questions being thrown at you off the cuff was huge for what I started here because there was no nerves.” Leading into Martin’s career at Oak Hills, he began in a more hands-on program for students in need. When asking Martin what his teaching experiences have been like over the years as far as course load and student behavior, Martin explains, “I was in a program called freshman academy where we took about 50 of our most at-risk students and I worked on a team of four core teachers and our goal was obviously, support them academically but it was more that emotional support and helping them learn how to be students.” Although Martin is now involved in the highest-level math courses at Oak Hills, he has never lost the trait of caring for his students in various ways.
Martin has always cared for students drastically in every aspect of life by devoting his time and energy to their days. Alli Obert, a student of Mr. Martin and an executive board member of the Student Council, states, “If I’m having a bad day, I can talk to him about it and he’s always super encouraging.” When asking Martin what motivates him to be so involved in Oak Hills, he answers, “The Students. Everything is for the students. I want to make sure I’m doing a good enough job to teach those who are in my classroom and all the extracurricular stuff, trying to make sure everyone in the building can always look back and say they had a good high school experience.” Martin’s main goal in being involved in math, athletics, and student council at Oak Hills is for students to look back at their high school days and enjoy their time with a sense of belonging.
