Mr. Jon Bennett: World Traveler Lands at Moeller

After a ton of moving around the United States, one of Moeller's newest English teachers, Jon Bennett, has settled in at Moeller High School. In his 12 years of teaching, including an all boys charter school and student teaching in Belize, he found his home here at Moeller. Jon Bennett was born and raised here in Cincinnati, his two brothers graduated from Moeller, but Jon ended up attending St. Xavier High School.

Logan Peters and Jon Bennett being dudes (Josh Molina)

Despite attending St. Xavier, he has only good things to say about Moeller. Bennett mentioned that most of his best friends were Moeller students, as well as his two brothers, so he knew quite a bit about what Moeller is about. “Moeller does a really good job of supporting all students. The brotherhood doesn’t compare to Moeller's.”

Bennett explained that his experience in high school was that he had core group of friends and that was it. There wasn't the same type of brotherhood to make connections at St. Xavier. Bennett also swam at St. Xavier High School, which is a high level swimming program. He is looking forward to hopefully helping to coach the Moeller swim team this year and taking the athletes to a state championship.

After graduating from St. Xavier in 2003, he took his student talents to Oxford, Ohio, where he attended Miami University. One experience he was excited to talk about was his time student teaching in Belize through a Miami student teaching program. Bennett talked about the importance of relating to students, and discussed his learning of the Central American country’s culture.

Bennett said, "Relationships with the students was crucial, because we were outsiders coming into a totally different setting. If we didn’t establish ourselves as wanting to learn the culture, they wouldn’t listen to us.” His teaching experience in Belize has made a huge impact on his teaching. Being the minority in a particular setting and learning the culture provided a unique teaching experience for Bennett.

Nearing the end of Bennett's first quarter here at Moeller he has some things to say about it. Bennett is currently teaching freshman and sophomore English classes including an English 1 Honors class. He has a ton of confidence in his students; he even said, "There are plenty of kids who are capable of doing well, they just don't know it." Bennett has a ton of faith in this school and his students, so make sure you give Mr. Bennett a nice warm welcome to Moeller.