Senior Chief McClain is my Naval Science Instructor (NSI) at the Delaware Military Academy. Senior Chief is also a former member of the Navy. He makes the class enjoyable no matter what we do. During the days when we take notes on a certain lesson, he teaches us what we need to know and more. He can also be very comical sometimes and tell weird jokes. He can also be very generous with his time if you need help with anything.

     During our lessons in class, no matter what we are learning about, he always seems to find time to finish our lesson, but he is also able to go further in and give his thoughts and tell us his life experiences that relate to the certain topic. He will also give you tips depending on what topic we are learning about, and he will tell us what he thinks or what he would do in that type of situation. Sometimes he'll tell us stories about when he was in the service that'll relate to the topic. One day in class we were learning about hygiene and food poisoning, and he decided to share a story about people he knew who were on a trip, in the middle of nowhere, and they were hungry. They decided to pull over and slap a piece of meat on the car engine and then drive on. Later, they stopped and decided to eat it. Later that day they went to the emergency room because of food poisoning. Basically his point of that story was to tell us that uncooked food is unhealthy and to always make sure that the food you are eating is cleansed and cooked. He has a billion other stories like that; it keeps class interesting.

     Senior Chief can be a humorous teacher at times. At the end of the school day or end of class you can be more relaxed about what you say, like saying what's up instead of yes, sir. Some days at lunch if there’s a goldfish on the ground he'll come over and say, “someone save that fish”. This one day after we all got in class, he told us that there was a drawing on the whiteboard, but we all said that there was nothing there. Then he said, “yeah there is, there's albino sheep”.  After that we all laughed, and then class went on. Just recently we've been getting shadows (incoming students for next year) and during class when we aren't doing anything, Senior Chief would play a song and make the shadows get in front of the class and dance which is probably really awkward for them. Although he can be very entertaining at times, he can also be stern and serious when he needs to be.

     If you are struggling in his class for anything whether it's academic reasons or drill, he will help you. Some days he'll stay after school on his own time if you are struggling to help you until you get whatever you're struggling with correct. Senior Chief will help you succeed no matter what you need help with. He will give you tips or examples of what should be done and how they should be done.

     This is exactly why Senior Chief should be Educator of the Year. Again, he is very informative about our lessons, and he will go further into a lesson even if he doesn't need to just to inform us on other important things. Also, he is a very entertaining and supportive teacher. Senior Chief always makes class interesting and always makes me want to go back to his class every day. He will make jokes periodically to entertain us and he will support us in anything we need help with. If all of this isn't good enough for Educator of the Year, then I don't know what is.