First a fire teacher, now he’s into woods

Mr. Joseph Maciorowski, more commonly referred to as Mr. M, is the new woodshop teacher at Armijo High School and, although it’s his first year at Armijo, he has taught in Daly City, Pittsburg, Cotati, and Hayward, “with years off in between,” he said.

Distance Learning is hard for all teachers, but it is especially difficult for classes that are recognized for being hands-on, like Woods and other shop classes. “It will be a challenge to teach some aspects of my classes,” said Mr. Maciorowski. “The hard part will be using tools. We have to wait until we go back to in-person classes.”

While some students may have access to woodworking tools at home, not all do and safety precautions could not be enforced, so Mr. Maciorowski’s on-line lesson plans cannot follow the typical style of a traditional Woods class. As a result, he felt that assigning bookwork would be easy for some students since they may be able to concentrate at home better.

During Distance Learning, Mr. Maciorowski plans to focus on how to work safely around dangerous equipment, how to calculate materials, how to read and draw plans, and how to be creative with wood.

Before he started teaching Woodshop, Mr. Maciorowski taught basic firefighting classes at the fire department, instructing his students on how to drive and pump a fire apparatus, perform water rescues, and more. He also taught pandemic classes, CPR, first aid, and other lifesaving classes for 16 years.

Mr. Maciorowski attended high school in Brick, New Jersey and Framingham, Massachusetts, but became a Californian when he went to the Stanford Paramedic Program, Sonoma State University, and Santa Rosa College. The pandemic has affected him in ways that might seem a bit different to most people at Armijo. “I live out in the country so… I only notice when I go into town. Otherwise life is normal.” Quarantine life has been peaceful, rather than restrictive, but now it is back to work and back to reality.