The St. Mary's Classroom

Fifth Grade
Mr. Corbat
kcorbat@stmarysstclair.org


I am proud to be a new edition to St. Mary’s. I enjoy teaching to the fullest. St. Mary’s has been a wonderful school and the students and parents have been great. I am originally from the area, growing up in Marysville. After high school, I attended college at Saginaw Valley State University and graduated in 2008. Then after college I moved to North Carolina for a teaching job. The job was at Pine Forest High School, where I worked hard at becoming a better teacher. The first year for any teacher is challenging and Pine Forest was a tough school to work at. I learned more in that first year than I ever could have in college. During my time at Pine Forest, I coached varsity tennis and wrestling, was voted beginner teacher of the month in April, and was a finalist for Mr. Green and Gold. (Mr. Green and Gold was a competition between teachers from each department.) Recently I was married in St. Mary’s Church and I am also expecting my first child in April. I hope to have a long career and contribute to making St. Mary’s an exemplary school.

Class Description

I came to St. Mary’s with two goals in Math. I wanted to first improve the student’s readiness for high school and I want to improve Iowa test scores. Math has historically been a tough subject for students. For many students, they either understand math from the start or have to work hard at understanding the concepts. I have found that St. Mary’s students are completely capable at achieving my two goals. The main challenge I have is changing the student’s perception of math. I want students to be successful in math and actually earn that success. In fifth grade, we focus on creating a great foundation with early math concepts. (exp. Fractions, decimals) Then in sixth grade students take that foundation and build upon it more and introduce new concepts that are directly related to prior concepts. Seventh grade will be the beginning of pre-algebra or so the students will think that, what they won’t realize they have been doing algebra since fifth grade but now we just give it the name pre-algebra. The student’s final year in math will be algebra. Students will use the foundation of pre-algebra and expand upon those topics. My algebra class is to prepare students for high school math. I make no guarantees that some students won’t be in algebra as freshman in high school. My main goal is to ensure the student success in math once they leave St. Mary’s and go on to whichever high school they choose.