Math mentor

Some students can't wait to get out of their math classroom, never to return again.

Zach Keller liked it so much he couldn't wait to get back.

Now he’s an algebra and calculus teacher at Jay County High School.

“I enjoy getting and I enjoy teaching these kids,” said Keller, “and I enjoy something that I couldn’t really see myself doing anything else.”

He said his favorite part about teaching is watching his students grow and develop a plan for their lives.

The flip side — the challenge — can be motivating students who have not quite yet figured out their goals and showing them their potential.

“Zach is someone who has a lot of energy,” said Jay County High School principal Chad Dodd, “who makes people around him feel good.”

Dodd said Keller, who also teaches dual-credit classes, is able to build a good rapport with any student but can sometimes struggle to say no to opportunities that will assist students and that he asks a lot of Keller.

Keller, who has been teaching in Jay County for eight years, has also had the opportunity to teach in Hong Kong for three weeks. He was originally going to be a teaching assistant but after receiving a call that the original instructor couldn’t come, he was offered the teaching position instead and happily accepted.

Keller taught an inductive and deductive reasoning class to the students for eight hours a day for three weeks.

“I was very young in my teaching,” Keller said. “And my teaching assistant was actually a professor at New York University so he had way more experience teaching but he had never worked with kids that age. So it was kind of an interesting dynamic.”

He has also worked in the “Step Up” program through Ivy Tech to assist Delaware County students with algebra.

Outside of teaching, Keller is also a student council faculty advisor and the math academic team coach. He also assists his wife, who is the children’s director at The Rock Church, with various programs.

Keller plans to pursue a master’s degree in education to allow him to keep teaching the dual credit classes that offer high school students the opportunity to earn college credit. He’s also considered teaching at the collegiate level, but “that would be way down the road.”

Dodd said that millennials like Keller bring an energy and positivity to the classroom that helps relate to younger students.

“You have to do what you love to do,” Keller said. “You have to have a job you love doing and this is education for me.”