It was 2:45 p.m. in room 2353 at Oak Park and River Forest High School. A student had fallen asleep on his desk while the teacher, Jose Arreola, continued explaining math concepts to the other students, who were engaged in his presentation.
The class discussion wrapped up, and Arreola told the students to start their homework. Many students came up to him with questions. But instead of ignoring the kid who dozed off, Arreola gently woke him and pulled him out of class for a private conversation.
Arreola later explained that the student had been sick the past couple of days and missed a class. “Sometimes these kiddos are going through a tough time,” he said, “and sometimes having a one-on-one conversation lets them know you care about what they are going through.”
For the past two years, Arreola has taught various levels of math at OPRF. He started teaching because he loved helping others understand something that once felt nearly impossible, he said. Back in his college years, Arreola said, “A lot of my classmates were struggling.” Watching them learn inspired him. “The look of success [and] triumph on their faces…pushed me to start teaching,” he said.
Before teaching at OPRF, Arreola taught at Elmwood Park and Morton High School, where he once sat in the same classroom as his students. “It was my way to give back to the community,” he said. “That school was 99% Hispanic, and they came from similar backgrounds. It was nice to give back to that population.”
Throughout his teaching career, he has stuck to the same philosophy: the kid comes before the student. “I don’t think grades should define a student,” he said. “Everyone is going through different things; judging a student on their grade isn’t fair. You have to consider the entire person.”
Erin Dwyer, a senior at OPRF, described how Arreola’s personality helped math seem less intimidating. “Mr. A’s humor was definitely the reason I became close with him,” she said. “I had math for the first period, and I honestly looked forward to his class every day. Also, one thing that I think shows how amazing the environment was in his class was how quickly I was able to become friends with kids I had never met before.”
During a recent class, Arreola made an effort to create a comfortable class environment. He rarely sat at his desk, instead walking around, joking and helping kids out.
The class was always buzzing with Arreola cracking jokes. “Mr. A is the funniest teacher I have ever met,” said freshman Colin Vondrehle. “He creates a great environment for his class that represents OPRF’s soul.”
For Arreola, humor is just one way to relate to students in the classroom. “It’s not so much that you have to be funny, it’s that you have to show the kids who you are,” he said. “You open up a little bit about who you are, and I think they tend to see you less as a power figure that they can’t talk to, and they see you more as a person. I think it helps get the kids to buy into what you’re doing.”
During a lesson on perfect squares, students filled in his sentences, joked bac,k and helped each other out. Even when a student was struggling, Arreola adjusted his methods to match the students’ speed, ensuring every student would succeed.
Arreola wants to be a teacher whose humor, empathy, and dedication make learning feel more human. “At the end of the year, if a student doesn’t love math,” he said. “I just hope they don’t hate it.”
