Beloved Upper School math teacher Chris Vicevich has returned to KO after one year away, teaching in New Haven. The math prodigy left KO to experience teaching at an inner city school in New Haven last year. Vice, the shortened name he lets his students call him, explained that he felt he needed to leave KO and experience teaching in a different environment. “Throughout the year I got to thinking about social justice because my previous school I worked at was very into social justice,” he said. “That was a huge theme at the school. I thought to myself, ‘What should I be doing’ and that’s when I got into thinking, they trained us to be inner city school teachers when I went to grad school for math education and I should probably do that and so I did it.”
However, after an amazing but challenging year, Vice felt that he needed to leave. “Switching schools was harder than I anticipated, plus the environment was harder than I anticipated,” he said. “I had a great group of colleagues, but I had a vision of what I wanted to be like as a teacher and I couldn’t see that coming to full fruition there.”
After thinking about where he should go after his year in New Haven, Vice circled back to KO. “Private school feels good, and there are also lots of good public schools, but KO is great and they let me be the teacher I wanted to be and I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have,” he said. “As soon as I could I got in touch with Mrs. Goss and asked if there was ever an opening, I would be ready to come back.”
In the one year that Vice was away, the KO student body missed him dearly and many kids were excited to get him as a teacher this year. “I was so excited that I got him as my math teacher. I have heard such good things about him,” Senior Molly Baron said. Senior Sean James agreed. “My friends always spoke highly of him, so when I saw he was my math teacher, I was so relieved that I would have a good teacher for my senior year,” he said.
Not only does Mr. Vicevich work on being a math enthusiast and teacher; he has other hobbies which include finishing the preliminary practices of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, playing video games, and watching TV. He even does translation work, translating Tibetan Buddhist texts into English. Now that is a well rounded guy!
“Mr. Vicevich is an amazing teacher who is passionate about his job and genuinely cares about his students,” junior Ishaa Sohail said. “I love his class!” KO is glad to have you back, Mr. Vicevich!
