About Mr. Hecker

Hey....   My name is Todd Hecker

I was at U of M's engineering program from Fall 1991 - Spring 1993.  And while I did great with my work there, I knew engineering was not my true calling.  So in the Fall of '93 I transferred to MSU's College of Education with the intent of teaching Math.   I minored in Physics, simply because I had enough physics credits from my time in engineering at U of M.  

I graduated from MSU in 95, and earned my teaching certificate after a year of student teaching in Grand Ledge in 96.  In the fall of 1996, I began 19 years of teaching at North Farmington High School.  My first year, I taught both Math and Physics, and I actually found I preferred teaching Physics simply because it was much more "hands-on."  At the end of that year, one of the other Physics teachers retired, so I became a full time Physics teacher.

In my 19 years at North, in addition to teaching, I 

• ran our school's student government for 16 years

• ran POWER, a program which aimed to close the achievement gap for our minority students 

• was a member of the school's steering committee

• was chosen North Farmington's Teacher of the Year by the students

• was selected as the district's High School Teacher of the Year by district administration

• completed a Masters in Mathematics from Wayne State University in 2001 and won the highest achievement in math award from the dean of the math department... although I don't remember what it was called anymore.  (ooops!)

Toward the end of these 19 years I burned out because I did too much (I'm bad at saying no.)   Since I never wanted to be that teacher who was simply working for a pension sooooooooooooooo in 2015, I quit my job at North Farmington and I went to Wayne State to pursue a PhD in Mathematics.  What I discovered there was that 

• I was still pretty good at higher level math buuuuuuut...

• I had forgotten a lot of math since I finished my Masters

• I enjoyed my teaching assignment more than I enjoyed my math studies and research

So at the end of the summer after my first (and only) year in Wayne's PhD Program I learned there was a job teaching AP Physics opening at Grosse Pointe South HS, which I gladly took.  I started teaching there in the fall of 2016.  Thankfully, it turned out that year away from teaching full time was enough to rejuvenate my love of teaching, and I'm as happy as I've ever been.   In my time at South.....

• The students selected me as Grand Marshall of the homecoming parade in 2021

• The seniors selected me to give the sunrise speech after the all-night party in the spring of 2019

• (In non-pandemic years) the students in my AP Physics Classes have averaged 4.4, as compared with the national average of 3.5.

In the Fall of 2022, I began tutoring.

Oh....Other stuff

I've got two kids, Frank and Sally.  They're pretty great.  And  girlfriend name Colleen.  She's pretty great too.