Panther Press: What is your name?
Mr. Romano: My name is Vincent Romano.
Panther Press: Why did you decide to become a teacher?
Mr. Romano: I decided to become a teacher to give back to the community and for personal reasons, I wanted to make a difference.
Panther Press: Before you became a teacher at IMS, did you always want to become a teacher? If not, what was your career path before?
Mr. Romano: No, I went to school for business, and I worked in the business field for a few years before I changed my mind.
Panther Press: What college did you go to before you were a teacher, and what did you study?
Mr. Romano: I went to Montclair State University and I studied business.
Panther Press: What was your first job? Did it teach you anything you use now?
Mr. Romano: I worked at Target and it taught me a lot about responsibility, customer service and working hard.
Panther Press: Ever since you started teaching at Iselin Middle School, have you ever noticed a change in your ways of teaching? If you have, how did you change?
Mr. Romano: I learned from my own teaching and found better ways to explain the material and better examples of everyday life to help the students learn better.
Panther Press: Has your old middle school teachers influenced the way you teach?
Mr. Romano: A little bit because I didn’t always like the ways my teachers taught.
Panther Press: Who was your favorite teacher? How did they impact your ways of teaching?
Mr. Romano: Ms. Giordano was really tough but she motivated me to work harder and be more responsible and helped me be a better student.
Panther Press: When you first became a teacher, what did you think when you entered the classroom?
Mr. Romano: I felt nervous and not fully prepared because there are some things you have to learn as you go and a little confidence because I knew the math.
Panther Press: How did you plan to teach math to middle school students?
Mr. Romano: My approach has been to teach the lesson as if the students did not know anything about the topic.
Panther Press: What would you say to people who want to become a teacher at a school like this?
Mr. Romano: I would say you need to be willing to work hard and need to want to make a difference and not just work for the money.
