In his second year of teaching at a different school more than two decades ago, longtime math teacher PJ Yim got called into his principal’s office to have a conversation about his teaching style.
Yim remembers the principal saying he had a monotone voice that gave the impression he didn’t want to be there. Yim viewed that assessment as wrong. His style merely reflected his Korean American cultural upbringing; he was raised to be respectful and keep his distance from others.
Still, from that day on, he was inspired to take a more personal approach with his classes rather than talking about only math. When he first gave it a shot, he was immediately surprised at how much the classroom environment changed.
Yim said, “[The students in the classroom] kind of shrieked. They were surprised, like, ‘Wow, he’s a human being.’ And then I entertained a few more questions and started teaching calculus again. I had never seen those kids focus so much on math.”
After adding a more personal touch into his lessons, Yim found his students more engaged with the material.
Having attained a strong STEM background in his K-12 education, he was surprised to find that not all students had a solid understanding of fundamental concepts.
This epiphany motivated him to teach in a way that reviewed key points from previous years before building on to harder ones.
Now with 25 years of experience in the classroom, Yim, who is teaching Algebra 2 and Precalculus Honors this year, said he has the benefit of knowing common mistakes that students make and incorporating that knowledge into his lessons.
Over the years, he has been known for his extreme course rigor as well as his use of his “be like cactus” mantra— since they are tough and able to survive difficult conditions. Throughout his years of teaching, the idea to “be like cactus” has resonated with students, and many have given him gifts such as cactus pens, posters and diffusers.
After coming to the district in 2007, Yim started to experiment with specifics of his math class. It was important that students asked for help and worked hard to improve in his class, not retaking already taken tests.
He made a hypothesis that retakes would not benefit students, and he ended up being correct. “If people learn from the retakes, they should do well on the final exam,” Yim said. “All the retake did was raise their grade, but they learned nothing.”
He believes the only way that really helped was hard work.
With so much experience, Yim says grasping students’ attention during class and getting them to actually learn concepts has become easier for him over the course of his career.
“Mr. Yim’s relatable and intriguing teaching style always makes me motivated to work harder,” said freshman Felix Xie, who has Yim for Algebra 2 Honors. “Despite his repeated ‘cactus’ mantras and life stories, he always makes an effort to teach challenging concepts while involving a bit of humor with every lesson. It is so refreshing to have a teacher who is not only social but also deeply cares for his students’ learning.”
