Mei Asad teaches third grade at Weinberg Gifted Academy. She has been teaching for over two decades and has been in the Chandler District for eight years.

Asad has taught at other schools and even in other countries, but she calls WGA “my very favorite school.” She is proud to have helped spearhead the effort that brought gifted education to the school.

Both of her parents were teachers and Asad’s aunt was a special ed teacher. With “so many teachers in the family,” Asad says she was determined to go a different route. She got her degree in creative writing and was thinking of pursuing a master’s degree in linguistics. But after she graduated, she found herself in a school and says she realized that it felt “like coming home.”

She says she really feels at home at WGA as she was a gifted student herself. Asad says the school is “a little more chaotic and loud than a traditional school, but it’s more me."

While she enjoyed reading and writing the most when she was a student, Asad says when she started teaching she was surprised to find how much she liked teaching math. Making an art lesson fun is easy, she explains, but making math fun is a bigger challenge. But it is a subject where she has continued to grow, she explains.

“Now I think my favorite is teaching math,” says Asad.

Student Landon nominated his teacher and writes, “She is strict but nice. She sets expectations and goals that are doable.”

Asad says she tries to strike a balance between motivating her students and not adding anxiety for the overachievers.

To thread that needle, she advises all her students to “always do your best; your best is good enough.”

Asad’s family spent a year in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where she taught at a preK–12 school. She has also taught middle school, but she prefers being at an elementary, she says.

“I like the little guys. They’re so interesting and passionate,” Asad explains.

Asad likes to hike, read and cook international food. These days you can also find her under the hood of a car. She is learning to restore cars and is working on a 1965 Country Squire station wagon. She reports that it is a brand new hobby for her and it’s exciting.