New
At HIES Parker Miles, staff writer
Keeping with the theme of the variety of new faculty and staff at HIES, not a single new teacher at HIES resembles this concept more than Katie O’Connor. Born in London, England, O’Connor is the only new teacher at HIES who has lived in another country at some point in time. While this fact is incredibly unique, it’s her experience in London and her transition from a life in London to a life in the United States that makes her story arguably the most unique out of all the new teachers at HIES.
Currently, O’Connor teaches Algebra II and Precalculus at HIES, but for years, she taught Mathematics in the UK. When she moved to the US, she soon realized how different teaching Mathematics in both countries was. O’Connor mentions, “In the UK, everyone studies Maths until they are 16 and they are put into sets according to their ability in their age group”. At age 16, these students then take a GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exam and then decide whether they want to keep taking Mathematics courses.
One of the most notable aspects about O’Connor is her background in teaching. She started teaching in 2012, a year after obtaining her undergraduate degree from Manchester University in Manchester, England. However, teaching was not always what she wanted to do. In fact, O’Connor mentions, “I spent a year thinking about becoming an accountant”. However, she mentions, “I soon realized that was not what I wanted to do, and once I got a postgraduate degree in Mathematics Education at University College London, I realized that I might want to teach the subject”.
“Every year, students learn bits of Maths from all areas, algebra, geometry, statistics… there is no Algebra II or Precalculus and no such thing as passing or failing a course”, O’Connor mentions. She elaborates, “The Maths is ultimately the same but it’s not quite as international of a language as I thought”. In other words, the general concept is the same, but the way she teaches it at HIES vs. the way she taught it in the UK is completely different. O’Connor not only shares the difference between teaching in the UK and in the US, but she also com-
