Mr. Materum loves to learn and hopes to instill this love of learning to his students through personal example. As a Christian classical educator, one of his greatest desires is to teach children how to be philosophers in the strictest sense—where “Philo-” means love and “-sophy” means learning.
He is delighted to help fulfill the Great Commission through teaching his Canterbury fourth graders. And his enthusiasm is contagious as he delights in being able to combine his passion for Christian ministry with his love for elementary school teaching–following his previous public school teaching experience in 2nd and 4th/5th grades.
Though he attended a Christian school growing up it was during high school that he made a firm decision to accept Christ and then to follow Him wholeheartedly. With the help of his youth pastor Mr. Materum even ended up founding an official Christian club–on his public high school campus!
After high school he headed to the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he earned his B.S. in Chemistry. While at Cal Poly he served in several leadership roles in the Chinese Christian Fellowship. But, rather than pursuing a medical degree (as did most of his family) he felt called elsewhere by God so he instead obtained his Multi-Subject Teaching Credential.
More recently he has been serving as Executive Director of the West Coast Chinese Christian Conference, and he and his beautiful fiancee, who lives in San Jose, have been attending Grace Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto.
Mr. Materum also loves a good conversation, reading books, listening to podcasts, photography, anything related to writing, weightlifting, and bicycling. He also likes Epic Fantasy and is currently working his way through the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World ten-year reading plan.