While teachers can often be viewed as merely individuals who grade an assignment and teach a curriculum, Ramtin Aidi works to flip that narrative by serving not only as a teacher, but as a personable mentor who provides a welcoming classroom environment to his students.
“He not only teaches his students but creates a familial community within the classroom where everyone is heard and included,” said Hannah Phan, one of Aidi’s students as part of the Advanced Via Personal Determination (AVID) program.
Aidi teaches both the AVID program and geometry at Carlmont. One of his primary goals as a teacher is to build a strong sense of community within the classroom.
“I strive to make students feel comfortable enough to talk to each other and me so that we have a small family,” Aidi said.
Having been a teacher for 20 years, Aidi worked at other schools before starting at Carlmont eight years ago.
Aidi structures his class in a way that promotes collaboration. With the class structure being project-based, his students engage in group work, emphasizing an equal importance of social skills to that of academic ones.
“You have to find a way to engage students, and I think the best way to do that is through riddles and puzzles and projects and group work,” Aidi said.
Growing up, Aidi was challenged in high school; he found geometry extremely difficult and had to retake the class twice. However, as he grew up, he came to the realization that it wasn’t the content that made the concepts difficult, but rather the style in which he was taught.
“I figured there’s a more effective way for me to teach geometry, so I wanted to see if I could do a better job teaching it than it was taught to me,” Aidi said.
Since he’d struggled with grades in high school, he started his career off at Riverside City College before transferring to University of California, Riverside, where he majored in American literature. After, he received his master’s in American and English literature from California State University, East Bay before receiving his second master’s in school administration from San Francisco State University.
Beyond teaching academic skills, Aidi strives to impart soft skills to his students.
“Your soft skills are your people skills, knowing how to look people in the eyes, smile, be charming, make good conversation, and intrigue them with your creativity,” Aidi said.
Students are often inspired by Aidi’s unique style of teaching; his tricky incorporated puzzles and brain teasers encourage creative thinking.
“Mr. Aidi has helped me see math in a different way, forcing me to constantly think outside the box,” said geometry student Afnaan Shehadeh.
Annually, Aidi leads the boat races. During lunch, geometry students race cardboard boats across the pool following weeks of designing and constructing them, exemplifying Aidi’s goal of teaching math’s real-life applications.
“Kids can see that if they learn enough geometry, they can actually build a boat that can carry a human body,” Aidi said.
Overall, Aidi constantly pushes his students to be better people in and outside of the classroom. He gives his students valuable knowledge they can carry out in the future.
“Mr. Aidi has helped me learn that failure does not define me and that one bad test score won’t be the end of the world, all I need to do is learn and do better, to be the best I can,” Shehadeh said.
