Meet Segerstrom’s newest math teacher, Mark Hennemuth. Growing up a resident of Santa Ana, he attended the same schools as some of his students and taught at Valley High School for 16 years before teaching at Segerstrom. His interests include baseball, working with his church group, and playing games with his family.

After graduating from UCI, he joined the police force. “I actually met my wife when I was going through the police academy and she was a teacher, so that kind of was the impetus to realize [that] I should probably be a teacher too because I had already been a substitute teacher [before]. It kind of just made sense to have the same schedule as my future wife.” Mr. Hennemuth believes that in order to build healthy relationships, putting in time and effort is crucial.

Mr. Hennemuth has always had a love for math and even tutored his peers when he was in school. “I consider myself a very patient person. I think sometimes, to teach math, you need to have a lot of patience because sometimes people don’t get it the first time. My favorite thing about math is, easily, the relationships. Just getting to talk to people about math, about things that aren’t math, telling jokes, and keeping the class lively is really enjoyable [for me].”

He believes that everyone should be treated with respect and should treat others with respect. His ideology is that this allows for better classroom management and helps forge new relationships with his students.

“To be a successful teacher, he also wants to encourage his students and remind them that while math can be difficult sometimes, it doesn’t always have to be. “It’s always nice to hear success stories when people come back and tell me about what they’re doing now.”

Mr. Hennemuth has high hopes for his students’ success in and after his class. “I definitely want to see [my students] go on into whatever profession they want. I hope they learn the math needed for my class. I want to see people learn that they can use math to solve [real-life] problems too.”