Scott Mall - The March Fridge Wholesale Liquor Educator of the Month
Manhattan High School
Math Teacher & Head Girl's Basketball Coach
- - -
We're talking to the legendary, Mr. Coach Scott Mall
Not legendary! <laugh>
My friend, for starters, how long have you been in the education realm?
It's been 40 - I dunno what - 45 years, something like that. It's been that long. Been since 1978, however long that is.
That’s amazing! Are you originally from Manhattan?
No, I'm from a small town north of here called Linn. Very small town. The whole town of Linn is smaller now than our senior class, but that's where I went to school at.
What was your path to coming to Manhattan High?
My first teaching job was at Seneca, Kansas; what used to be Nemaha Valley. Now it's Nemaha Central. I was there for six years, coached a lot of different sports, and taught lots of different math classes. Then I went to Southeast Kansas, to Gerard, which is near Pittsburgh, Kansas. I coached a lot of different sports there. Coached, taught math and science classes there at Gerard for six years. Then I've been here at Manhattan since 1990.
You’re celebrating 34 years at MHK this year! That’s amazing! That’s a lot of students' lives that you've touched.
Boy, I had a lot of students. A lot of great students. I've been so very fortunate. All three places I've been, have just had outstanding students at every spot, and I work with outstanding people.
If you can put it into words, what does it mean to be an educator and giving back to help mold the next generation? What does that mean to you?
I guess I don't really think about it that way. I just think every day I've got a lot of great kids. I need to do the best I can for those kids, and every one of the nice things about being teacher every day is different. Every hour's different because the kids are different every time, and it's really refreshing. It makes you feel good to come to school, quite frankly. I don’t know if a former teacher told me once, ‘when you start to feel like you're going to work, and not going to school, it's probably time to get out.’ And every day, I get to go to school today.
Beautiful attitude.
In your opinion, what is the future of math? There's been a lot of talk as far as different styles of learning. Common core is a big thing that gets talked about when it comes to math. Where do you see the future of math ending up? Is it always going to be ‘one plus two equals three’?
You know, that's always the basis - but there's so much more other things that come in. You do so many more things now. When they started with graphing calculators, that was a huge impact. My kids don't believe me when I tell them we didn't have any calculators when I was in high school, and they can't believe that. But the use of graphing calculators and the stuff you can do with computers now is just limitless with math and what they can do with it.
And math is the most universal language there is. Right?
That's right. I have some students in class. I have a student from China. I have a student from Afghanistan, and they all speak math.
Coach Mall, my friend. Congratulations once again.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Congratulations the March 2024 Fridge Wholesale Liquor/Manhattan City Lifestyle Magazine Educator of the Month, Mr. Scott Mall