Class is over, at least for today.

When Math Analysis teacher Alan Wong accidentally concluded class ten minutes early, not quite adjusted to the MVHS bell schedule, his students smiled and leaned back. Even on the first day of the school year, they welcomed this unexpected pause in the rigor of their fast-paced days.

“You have homework on the first day of school?” Wong said. “I would never give my students homework on the first day of school.”

‘You have homework on the first day of school?’ Wong said. ‘I would never give my students homework on the first day of school.’

One student nodded his head and smiled knowingly, as if recalling the more downtempo pace of his middle school days.

After seven years of teaching pre-algebra and algebra at Kennedy Middle School, Wong applied for a teaching job at MVHS after long aspiring to instruct at a high school level. He has always enjoyed teaching higher level math, and now he returns to aid many of his former students from KMS.

“My old students are so tall and mature [now],” Wong said, smiling. “Having not seen them for a couple of years … they might have grown so much that I don’t recognize them!”

To his former students, however, Mr. Wong is an unmistakable figure. Although Wong’s name printed in small font didn’t quite register on the first morning of school, word traveled fast.

To his former students, however, Mr. Wong is an unmistakable figure.

“When I heard he was here I was really excited,” sophomore and current student Kaitlynn Yamauchi said. “[Mr. Wong] was one of my favorite teachers in middle school. I ended up getting an A … which really surprised me.”

Other students, equally stunned, shouted “Mr. Wong!” from the hallways before being swept along to their next class. He is always thrilled by former students who pass with a greeting or drop by his new classroom.

“[Former students] tell me what year they are when I don’t remember, and they always bring it back to my memory,” Wong said, commenting on the massive amount of students at MVHS compared to KMS — yet another aspect of high school to adjust to.

Even before teaching middle school, Wong taught at a high school that seemed miniature in comparison to the 2500 swarming students at MVHS, where the average class seems gargantuan. Compared to the two-building high school where he was once employed, MVHS’ newly decked-out cafeteria and two-floored buildings gives the impression of a college campus.

“Everything is so new,” Wong said. “It’s a learning experience.”

“It’s a learning experience.”

At this point, he isn’t sure if he’ll ever get used to the bell schedule and twice as many backpacked teens, and yet the otherworldliness of the environment presents a welcome chance to try something different and yet familiar: a new curriculum and classroom, but many of the same students to remind him of his veteran history at KMS.

Wong’s upper-level classroom, however, is mostly a clean slate: the off-white walls are invitingly bare, with only photographs of flowers and a poster reading the digits of pi. Both are remnants of the previous year. Still other decorations are relics carried over from KMS, such as the paper number 10 dangling from the ceiling and artwork from former students.

The remaining blankness is purposeful; Wong wants his students to color in the construction-paper rectangles and patches of wall with jigsaw of their own work, collected throughout the coming year. Just as he creates his new history at MVHS, his students will plaster the walls with their own timeline of achievements.

Just as he creates his new history at MVHS, his students will plaster the walls with their own timeline of achievements.

“I’m looking forward [to this year],” junior Talia Yukelson said. She is a current student of Wong’s Math Analysis class. “I like having new teachers because they help me learn about different environments.”

Yukelson recounts her first period on the first day of the school year, when Wong had asked the class if the students used bathroom passes.

“That’s so middle school,” said Yukelson, pausing and smiling at the moment of nostalgia. She attended KMS but never had Wong as a teacher, though she has now been given an unexpected second chance.

“My [friends] had him and were excited,” Yukelson said. “It would be cool to see someone again, to [recapture and] remember what it was like in middle school.”

Like two-way time travel, Wong watches as his former students mature on the path to graduation and adulthood, while nostalgic students reminisce about the carefree, fleeting and often awkward memories of their middle school years.

Wong continues to learn in tandem with the rest of his students, he states that his first week at MVHS has been a positive experience thus far.

Wong continues to learn in tandem with the rest of his students…

“Other teachers have been helpful, guiding me and giving me their resources from last year,” Wong said. “I’ve been working a lot with the other teachers in the [math] department.”

Though he believes that the new textbooks in his curriculum seem a little outdated, he tries to supplement the material with other tools that may provide a fresh perspective.

“Q as in queen, D as in dog, F as in Frank, Z as in zebra, G as in giraffe,” Wong said while explaining the class’s registration code for Khan Academy. The code had already been written on the whiteboard, but the moment garners another smile from the students.

So far, Wong’s years at middle school haven’t just resulted in disorientation: he is now able to refresh the critical thinking skills long forgotten among high schoolers.

“At middle school, I’ve been pushing for students to communicate their thoughts,” Wong said. “Some of that got lost … I’m going to be emphasize to students to show their thoughts more.”

Articulating the process is Wong’s new focus, especially because it is a skill that, in his opinion, many MVHS students have yet to master. The answer will no longer be everything: Wong emphasizes that the steps behind the answer matter too.

Just as his steps, however small, are the foundation of a new future.

Just as his steps, however small, are the foundation of a new future.

When at last brunch finally begins, a former student approached D203. He walked tentatively to Wong’s swung-open door, backpack bouncing against his shoulders.

“I heard you were teaching here,” he said, pausing as if wanting to say more. Two students with blue backpacks bound down the nearby staircase, also former students at KMS.

“[Students] give me a look of shock when they see I’m here,” Wong said later, smiling. In the meantime, Wong experiences his own brand of culture shock, navigating fuller halls and brimming classrooms while opening his doors for students.

“As I walk around each day around campus, I see more and more of my former students,” Wong said. “[MVHS] becomes more friendly and familiar to me.”

Story by Kristin Chang with additional reporting by Harini Shyamsundar