Bill Nye has nothing on this science guy.
“At first, they were just amazed that their teacher has a kitchen,” Lee, 39, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, which celebrates educators amid Teacher Appreciation Week. “They think we just appear at 8 a.m. and disappear at 3 p.m.”
His highly entertaining science experiments, which could be replicated using basic items from their own kitchens, quickly spread from his high school students to being viewed nationwide through his social media, includingFacebook,InstagramandTwitter.
He also hosts inspirational entrepreneurs and even featured a drone lesson. Using innovation and motivation, he turned to his students' interests to make a point. They were into the Marvel Universe, so he usedAvengers: Endgameto illustrate carrying capacity.
Courtesy Jonte Lee
Freshman Aleya, 15, was nervous about starting high school during a pandemic. Lee made sure he distance-met all his new students, bringing school supplies he bought from money he earned teaching summer school.
“He made me feel so comfortable,” Aleya says, adding that he gives all his students $25 in a card for their birthdays.
James, 15, admits he wasn’t a very motivated student until he met Lee.
“He really opened my mind and he taught me that there are things that I could do and enjoy while being successful,” says James.
For more teachers going above and beyond for their students, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
In his first year of teaching, Lee recalls a student who would not speak to him or acknowledge him in the halls. One day another teacher told him how much this student admired Lee after hearing him stutter in class and the students not laughing at him. The student said it made him feel like he could do anything because he also had a speech impediment.
Lee teaches at a predominately Black high school. Yet Black men make up only 2% of teachers in the U.S., according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“That’s why representation is so important,” Lee says. “As a Black male educator, living with a speech impediment I want to represent to my students that you can do anything.”
Lee puts a high value on treating his students with compassion and kindness, understanding that perhaps a student’s lack of interest can stem from years of not feeling heard.
He tells the story of the time he made chocolate chip cookies every morning for one student, only to discover the young man was selling or giving them away. When Lee asked him why, the student said simply that he didn’t like chocolate chip cookies.
“That hit me. I never asked the question, what do you want?” Lee says. “Students have wants, desires, needs. It’s up to us to get to know them.”
Many times, he says, students have become boxed into a category of failure or disappointment where they no longer try. He remembers one student who failed to show up to a lunchtime tutoring session. Lee tracked him down, handing him the lunch he had prepared for him and asked why he was a no-show.
“He said, ‘Because so many times I was promised something and it didn’t happen so I didn’t think it was going to happen,’ " Lee says.
Lee believes it comes down to teachers showing love and respect — and recognizing that they don’t know what door that student just walked out of to get to school.
Lee understands. He tells PEOPLE he was raised in an abusive home in a rundown trailer that lacked air conditioning in the oppressive Louisiana summers, and during the winter, his only heat came from the oven.
As a child, his only solace came from his time at school. One day his concerned second grade teacher gave him a note with her home phone number, saying she would come and get him if he ever felt unsafe.
“I was that silent kid who was screaming… muted screams. Mrs. Richardson created a safe place,” Lee says. “I never called. But whenever things were bad at home, I would take [that note] out and felt Superman was on his way. She taught with love, with compassion. I try to be a Mrs. Richardson to my students.”
There are definitely challenges, but Lee says love wins.
“Your love for the students, your love to educate them, your love to interact with parents, your love to see them grow,” he says, “it just overrides any challenges that I face in this profession.”
source: people.com
