Mr. Shea: The Meme King
You can find him in his classroom working hard on his lesson plans or putting up memes on his classroom door during brunch. After school, he’s also on the soccer field coaching the ELD soccer team. Despite it being his first year at San Mateo High School, Mr. Shea has already taken a prominent role in the SMHS community.
Mr. Shea grew up in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts and earned his degree in Secondary Mathematics Education from Boston University. At BU, he was also a four-year starter for the nationally-ranked Division I men’s soccer program. A standout student and athlete, Mr. Shea was awarded the Scarlet Key for leadership and scholarship, an honor given to only 70 of 4,000 graduating seniors. After graduating college, Mr. Shea taught at Cushing Academy, a private boarding school in central Massachusetts, for five years. Not only did he teach Calculus and Pre-Calculus at Cushing, but he also coached the varsity boys’ soccer team, helping transform it into a nationally recognized program that sent 14 players to play NCAA soccer. Since then, he has also taught at Waltham High School outside Boston and Mission High School in San Francisco. Now, he teaches Geometry and EL Algebra at SMHS.
Mr. Shea was inspired to become a teacher after taking Honors Pre-Calculus in high school. “My teacher, Mr. Plummer, was one of the best teachers, and watching how happy he was coming to school every day made me want to do exactly what he did,” says Mr. Shea.
Although Mr. Shea has taken Mr. Plummer as a role model, Mr. Shea has put his own twist on forming the classroom environment: his memes. The memes vary from relatable realizations of having to get a 125% on the final to get an A in a class to light-hearted jokes about Mr. Shea himself. Mr. Shea says that “the memes started last year while [I was] teaching at Mission High School. Given that memes were popular on Instagram, I felt like it would be a good way to relate to my students and get a laugh or two out of it.” Whether students are in Mr. Shea’s class or walking by in the hallway, they have been able to share laughs over these jokes in the meme style that students are all familiar with.
Mr. Shea’s favorite part about teaching is “watching the academic and personal growth of my students throughout the year.” He strives to push his students to become strong problem solvers, critical thinkers and communicators and to develop confidence and interest in the subjects he teaches them.
Mr. Shea hasn’t been at SMHS long but has already garnered the admiration of his colleagues. “He’s completely awesome. You don’t have to be in his class very long to realize that,” shared Ms. Dirksen, Computer Science and Algebra teacher.
In the next couple of years, Mr. Shea hopes to start a master’s program and take on the challenge of becoming a student again. He also hopes to become fluent in Spanish as he learns from his students and takes advantage of online resources and classes.
On his advice for students at SMHS, Mr. Shea says to take chances and not be afraid of failure. He explains, “only true growth comes from challenge, and in a lot of cases, failure. It should not be looked at as a bad thing to fail, but rather an opportunity to reflect and learn.”
