You rarely have the opportunity to see your teachers outside of school. In eighth grade, at North Shore Middle School, I got that opportunity when my favorite teacher, Mr. Vento, was also my neighbor.  I’ve never had a more funny -- yet appropriate -- teacher in my life.

Mr. Vento, being a teacher, a father, and athletic director, always came to class with the greatest sense of humor.  He understood that eighth graders didn’t care about geometry, which is why he would put random slides in our presentations that would help us get through the 70 minutes of math everyday.

My stomach would drop like is was on a roller coaster when he would say “Mazurek, go do number three on the SMARTboard!”  But after times of failing, I realized that no matter what I put up there, he was determined to help me understand the topic before I returned to my seat.  He let me know if I was struggling, he would have my back. 

Mr. Vento does more for the students besides teach them geometry.  Let’s say you came into a class looking like Grumpy from the Seven Dwarfs, he would throw a smile on your face before you left his classroom.
I can always count on Mr. Vento to be the neighbor I stop and have a 30 minute conversation with.  He is always looking out for me and asking, “How’s the golf team going to be this year?” or “How’s school going for you?”  He always turns a subtle greeting into a great, heart warming conversation.  I knew I could ask him whatever I wanted to about high school.

Whenever someone describes a good teacher, you think of someone that is funny and nice. But Mr. Vento was more than that. He would go out of his way to ensure everyone had a good day.  He made sure every day kid in Geometry was getting the education they needed to go be successful in high school math. To this day, I look at a basic concept and I remember I learned it in eighth grade.

I'll never forget the time in which we were talking about proofs -- one of the hardest topics in Geometry.  Everyone was stressing about the content, and then suddenly the secretary walked in with the best looking pizzas we had ever seen! Every class was so jealous that we got pizza to use for use triangles in our math equations, but Mr. Vento knew what kids wanted to survive  Geometry. 

The times when students in the class had birthdays, he allowed us 15 minutes to eat snacks, chat with classmates,  and celebrate their day filled with snacks and laughter. 

Mr. Vento is not the ordinary teacher. He’s an educator by being a teacher, father, and athletic director.  Mr. Vento has given me that determination in math ever since 8th grade, the best thing is, I still get to get see him everyday.