Warren Jacobson cub writer
Teaching classes filled with teenagers, parenting his two sons, the struggles of scheduling. Josh Glass, an Algebra I and Problem & Statistics teacher, 12 weeks ago, welcomes a newborn, Spencer Glass into his life.
Teaching five periods, raising his two boys and finding time to spend with his family is the daily life for Josh.
Josh spent two weeks on paternity leave to help Alissa Glass, his wife, a Special Education teacher at Beverly, and to spend time with both of his boys.
“I wanted some time to bond with my newborn and help my wife with the children,” Josh said.
A lot of the times you can tell Mr. Glass is tired from work and taking care of his kids, but he almost always has a smile on his face with a good attitude. Being a parent is like having a 2nd full time job, so handling both is a lot of hard work.
“It is a challenge. It is a lot of work to be home all day and changing diapers, and trying to get him to take a nap and calm, but she is enjoying the time at home,” Josh said.
Alissa, who is taking maternity leave until the end of the 2018-2019 school year, has been taking care of Spencer.
“Well, everything you do, you have to be ready for a baby, so you have to bring a lot of stuff with us everywhere we go and he [Spencer] can not be in large public spaces, like around a lot of people quite yet,” Josh said.
Josh has another son named Ethan, who is three ½ years old. Since Josh already had a son, he has had the newborn experience, and is a lot more prepared than he was when Ethan was born. His previous experiences allows him to spend more time with his family because he is a little more accustomed to having a newborn.
“Being a teacher gives me nice hours to be able to be in home in the afternoon,” Josh said.
Spencer was born on Feb 2, 2019 and Josh spent two weeks on paternity leave to help Alissa take care of their newborn. Josh has been telling stories about all their family adventures outside of school and showing photos of Spencer to his students.
“They [Ethan & Spencer] have kept me up, which made me tired, maybe a little more grumpy than I would be otherwise,” Josh said.
Teaching a bunch of teenagers is hard work on a full night of sleep, but teaching all those teenagers when you have a crying newborn waking you up multiple times a night can be pretty hard.
“Teenagers will be teenagers, sometimes they will be irresponsible or make bad choices and just dealing with that,” Josh said.
Josh has been teaching at Beverly for 13 years, years filled with more and more teenage students. Josh has tried to make his students more responsible by putting all of his in class notes and hand out homework on Jupiter Ed.
“I love Mr. Glass’s class. I think it is a really positive environment and I think his teaching style helps me learn better. I also think that his encouragement to ask for help has encouraged to understand difficult material,” Candice Anvari, a student in Josh’s P.6 Algebra I class, said.
Inside Josh’s class, there is a lot of group practice and study time that students have available. During lunch, Josh is usually in his classroom helping students either with the recent homework or for the upcoming tests, unless he is having a meeting with a teacher to talk about upcoming classes.
“Just keep working hard, and do, you know, professional development and work with other teachers that can help me learn what techniques are out there to better my craft,” Josh said.
With books of colleges and photos of his children covering the walls of his classroom, Josh tries to motivate his students and his children to be better people and always try their hardest.
“Just to be as good as you can, be good to other people and treat people with respect.” Josh said.