Teacher Spotlight: Mr. McCabe

I got the opportunity to speak to Mr. McCabe about his teaching and personal life. He was my former Biology teacher and I chose to do a spotlight on him because he taught one of my favorite classes during my freshman year. I asked him a series of questions so we could learn more about him beyond his school life.

Q: What did you do prior to teaching?

A: “I thought that I would be a doctor so I got my undergraduate degree in neuroscience and then I worked at a lab in UC San Francisco for a couple years under a neurologist. During those two years, I applied to medical school but for my first year, I got into a lower tier school and the doctors I was working for said to stay for another year, you’ll publish, and you can apply next year to get into a better school. At the same time in the back of my mind, I had always been thinking about joining the Peace Corps so I actually got interviewed with them while waiting for medical school applications. Then, the Peace Corps called me and said that they had an assignment for me but you have to decide. So I asked where did you want to send me? Then they said Tonga in the South Pacific and I agreed. In the Peace Corps was where I got my first interaction with teaching and for six weeks I was in a classroom teaching overseas.”

Q: What made you want to become a teacher?

A: “It kind of evolved over time. Currently, when I see kids in ninth grade, and then they come back to me for eleventh or twelfth grade, it’s really great to see how much they’ve grown and they know how I run the whole class, so it makes for a good atmosphere. It was a way for me to share that love for biology and science.”

Q:What do you enjoy most about teaching here at Mayfair?

A: “I like our small community. I like how it seems to me that kids can move across cliques pretty easily. My own high school experience wasn’t really like that. It was much harder for people to mix into different cliques and groups. But here, kids can move across their sports teams, art, band, and those things without boundaries limiting you.” 

Q: Can you describe one of your biggest challenges while working here?

A: “In 2008, I inherited the AP biology program from another teacher and I wasn’t really prepared, so I never really felt like I was very far ahead of the kids. So that was a scramble to try to keep up with. Another challenge outside of school would be my autoimmune disease called polymyositis.”

Q: What is your favorite class that you have taught and why?

A:  “I think I really started to enjoy myself with anatomy. There was a teacher who took me under her wing and taught my anatomy with the activities and everything. Since then, I kind of became the primary teacher with other teachers that have joined me. Every time we collaborate, we add new activities so it gets even better. I just enjoy seeing the kids try new things and make those discoveries. That is really fun to me.”

Q:What is a hobby or activity that you enjoy doing outside of work?

A: “I have been doing a lot of gardening while working in my yard. I grow bananas, dragonfruit, all sorts of good stuff. I’ve been kind of refining that. We also do compost and wood ash from a fire pit to amend the soil and it’s fun, I have been enjoying it.”

Q:How do you spend your summer break?

A: “Sometimes I teach summer school and I also travel a bit. My wife is from the South Pacific. We met when I was a Peace Corps volunteer so her family is there and she doesn’t get to see them that much, so we make that journey sometimes. My own children are grown and have scattered around so we also get to visit them. My oldest is in Texas and my youngest is in Berkeley.”

Q: Lastly, what have you enjoyed most about this school year?

A: “This school year, we’ve been doing a lot of new programming with teachers. There are different school initiatives being taken with new things like the social contracts so I've been getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things a little bit. We have also made a real effort to get into the lab a bit more. We’ve got this beautiful facility so I am trying to do more activities in our lab space.”

Thank you Mr. McCabe for allowing me the privilege to interview you. Thank you so much for your time, it was a pleasure to learn more about you beyond being a science teacher. He was a great teacher to have and being a part of one of his classes will be a memorable experience I won’t forget.

Photo credits: Mr. McCabe