Professeur canadien expérimenté en lycée international, spécialisé en littérature, anglais et philosophie, aidant les élèves à devenir des lecteurs confiants, des rédacteurs réfléchis et des penseurs

Matthew is an amazing teacher, mentor, boxing coach, and friend. I first met Matthew in a boxing club session. He was patient with the younger kids, organized and prepared for each session. He knows how to deal with all kinds of students, patiently and gently communicating with them, and the fact that he's always the most popular teacher in whichever school he's working in is the proof of his respect and patience with each student.

Later, I worked as his teaching assistant for his Intro to Western Literature class for a year, and I've had the opportunities to observe his teaching closely. He has a very unique teaching style, which is a combination of humor, clarity, depth and diversity of contents, and strong engagement of his students.

You'd never get bored sitting in Matthew's classroom. He's very good at engaging students into asking and answer questions. His teaching style is closer to the interactive kind, as he's willing to take questions at any point in his class and would take each of them seriously. He is also good at choosing reading materials for his lessons. He would use interesting examples from movies and literature to explain the general literary concepts for his students.

In designing his course, Matthew would include lots of creative and interesting writing projects. Sometimes he would assign some regular worksheets to guide them in writing structure, and sometimes he would assign some long-period creative writing projects such as zombie diary. From conversations with some of his students, most of them thought it was a very fun project to write. Moreover, Matthew would set up deadlines for each stage in these creative writing projects to help them understand the process of writing and to make sure students don't procrastinate.

Matthew cares about his students' learning, and also growth. He never sees them as merely "students", but also as "persons". He is willing to talk and understand the difficulty the students are facing, and always lends a hand and guides a way. He wants to make sure that he's delivering the contents in a clear and proper way, so he'd invite some of our peers to audit his class. He wants to provide a safe space for students to express their thoughts and he wants to build trust and respect among students, which he was quite successful at least in the classrooms I've sat in before. He would try his best to encourage students to try what they're interested in, and he would support them with his most sincere heart, which weighs much more than simply saying "I believe in you". All of which is to say, Matthew is someone who can guide students in learning, who cares about his students, who would cheers with them for their achievements and pick them up after a loss.

Matthew is a man of philosophy, patience, and passion.

You feel his philosophy in life. We met in 2022 in a boxing club, when I first stepped into high school. He has been a boxing coach, a life mentor, and a close friend of mine since then. Whenever I needed some help or encouragement, he’s the one who always backs me up. With his experiences in life and wisdom in thinking, I learned a lot from him, and we shared lots of good memories together. I still remember the winter break when we skied in Chongli, with setting suns and breezing winds. I felt his patience in his boxing and skiing coaching, and I gotta say he is so good at teaching.

You also see the patience and passion in academic teaching. Although I was not his “official” student, I audited several sessions, during which I saw his understanding and love of the characters, the scenes, the themes, and the meaning of the lines. He’s the person who motivated me to read books again. I found it hard to read whole books for years, but it was pretty fun to chat with him about the plots and philosophy of the works in my reading assignments, so I picked it up and figured that there are different lives to experience and lots of adventures in books.

It’s been a pleasure to meet Matthew. For the past few years, I discovered new hobbies with him, restarted reading inspired by him, and learned a lot of wisdom from him. He is definitely a Superprof.