Seminole High School (SHS) has so many amazing teachers, each with their own unique skill set and way of bonding with students. It is hard to think of just one great teacher because so many come to mind when you do, but a teacher from the math department does stick out, Mrs. Stump. Mrs. Stump, originally Ms. Notz before she got married to the IB history teacher Mr. Stump, has been a teacher at SHS for almost 12 years. Currently, she teaches AP Pre-calculus and IB Analysis and Approaches SL year one. She is also the sponsor for National Honors Society (NHS) with her husband.
If you have Mrs. Stump you know she has two adorable little girls who never fail to put a smile on anyone’s face. Many of her students have met and become friends with her daughters. Besides her adorable children, Mrs. Stump is a pretty chill teacher. While some such as IB sophomore Naga Sudhabathula believe “she sometimes gives too much work,” she is pretty lenient with her students. Sudhabthula adds that “she is really nice,” and gives them time to work on homework in class and lets them move seats when working on it. She enjoys math because it is a time where she gets to hang out with friends and learn at the same time. IB sophomore Nitya Duddella adds that she is very helpful and “always answers questions” when her students have them.
Mrs. Stump has an amazing story behind why she started teaching. While she jokes about hating her students and her job, she does have a genuine and sweet reason for it. She mentioned how she has always loved helping people even back when she was in middle school. She understood math and would always help others in her class understand too. When people would line up for help from her teacher, he would always tell some of them to “go to Ashley” which is “what [she] went by back then.” Once she reached college she wanted to go medical school, but was not able to get into her AP biology class and was instead placed into AP physics. In physics she discovered that she liked engineering and decided to major in it instead. Her problem with this was that she was not able to help people. So, after considering her love for math, she went into teaching. She loves seeing “the light bulb” go off in students’ eyes when she can help them. One of her favorite honor grad students enrolled in her honors calc class so she could learn factoring from Mrs. Stump. Her favorite part about teaching is helping others and of course “the summer off.”
Her class is always lighthearted and filled with laughter. She is always making six-seven jokes whenever she gets the chance, and somehow coincidentally ended up combining units six and seven to create the unit six-seven chapter test. Sometimes students will do stupid things like drop the phone caddy and she makes them put it back up, placing bets on how long it will take them. When she gives students work time she always makes sure to walk around the class in case anyone has questions, but she also strikes up conversation with everyone. She makes teaching and learning math fun.
Mrs. Stump is an amazing teacher who never fails to help any student who asks for it. While the work she assigns may seem like a bit much, it never fails to teach students the skills she wishes for them to learn.