Walking into room E023, you don’t expect your average AP Psych teacher not only to be serial blogger, but a former baseball player as well. Mr. Bob McCreary talks about adjusting to the AP teaching lifestyle and his future in maybe returning to coach baseball.

A native of Montgomery County, McCreary’s road through professional baseball ended in the minor leagues but he has made a big name for himself in teaching and coaching.  “I grew up not too far from here; I went to Upper Dublin High School which is about 30 minutes away down 309. I went to Villanova University and graduated from there and I played professional baseball for the Minnesota Twins for five years and decided that I had probably reached the end of my talent and decided to move on. I got into teaching; my father was a teacher so I had always wanted to get into teaching and coaching. So I spent two and a half years in the Philadelphia Catholic School System and then came to North Penn in 1996. Spent three years in Penndale Middle School and taught ninth grade social studies and then transferred to the high school ever since” explained McCreary.

Transferring from coaching baseball to teaching AP Psych for the first time proved to be a challenge for McCreary. But like coaching, McCreary learned that he can handle anything that comes swinging his way.

“There were a couple challenges, first off I had never taught AP Psychology before, and I had the courses and had interest in it but getting the content under my belt was my first priority and then I’d have to figure out ways to teach it. That’s always challenging for a teacher; anytime you start a new subject there’s a challenge of understanding the curriculum” said McCreary

McCreary also tried to bring coaching tactics into his classroom to help motivate his students to work harder. “When you coach, you are trying to get the most out of every player on the team. And not every player on the team is motivated by the same thing. So you really have to understand that you really can’t treat everyone equally; it would be bad to do so because if two guys are motivated by two different things then I have to treat them differently in order to get the most out of them. Some players respond to a coach who gets in their face, which might motivate them to play well. Other players might crawl into a shell if you get into their face and their performance gets worse. So really it’s understanding each individual player and then gearing your inner actions with that player and try to get the most out of them and I try to do the same in the classroom. I know not everybody is motivated by the same things I was. Not everybody learns the same way I did, so I attempt to do as much as I can in terms of showing visuals and a variety of different things.”

And will coaching in be back in the cards for McCreary in the future?

“I think sometime in the future I will, I don’t know if it will be North Penn; Coach Manero does a pretty good job. My kids are young and they’re getting involved in a lot of activities themselves. My father always came to my activities, especially when I got to the high school age. He was a coach as well, and that took him out of the house a lot. He was a wrestling and baseball coach and he always found the time to come to my sporting events and watch me play, and so I want to do that too. Nowadays being a varsity coach at a high school level is a year long job. And it was just taking away time from those family activities that I didn’t want to miss, but I think when my kids are older and they’re more settled, I think I’ll get back to coaching at some point” noted McCreary.

With teaching AP Psychology to high school students and keeping up with his children, Mr. McCreary is also a triple threat with his blogging skills. “I also have a passion for writing, and try to go on my blog as much as I can.”

Check out McCreary’s blog here: http://baseballbytheyard.blogspot.com/