Ms. Asterlee: Mission’s Math Master

Ms. Asterlee Baclay is a first-year algebra two and geometry teacher at Mission High School. She is a kind teacher who makes sure you understand the content but also pushes you to be on top of your work. But what does Ms. Asterlee do outside of school?
Ms. Asterlee likes to watch an anime called One Piece during her free time. She is caught up with the episodes but not for the manga version.  Ms. Asterlee does not have a favorite food but has a favorite drink, matcha.
What was Ms. Asterlee’s academic life before we came to know her as a teacher at Mission?
After immigrating from the Philippines in 2008, Ms. Asterleee went to Bessie Carmichael. Bessie was a K-8 school, which means she first went to Bessie in 5th grade and stayed there her whole middle school.
“Bessie was like a second family,” she said, and to this day she’s still friends with people that went there.
Then, she went to Lowell. She says her experience at Lowell was very different and it was not her “cup of tea.” Ms. Asterlee stated how the environment was different from her school previously. The population of students was also different ethnic-wise, so she was not used to it.
She felt the environment at Lowell was unhealthy since the students would compare themselves to each other, which meant they would only focus on themselves.
Ms. Asterlee went to SF State for two years and then she transferred to Stanford to finish her undergraduate degree. She then continued to go to Stanford for graduate school for her teaching credential program where she found more of a community than SF State, which was more of a commuter school in her opinion.
Ms. Asterlee stated that she was grateful that she went to Stanford and had the opportunity to be there and get her degree from there.
Ms. Asterlee didn’t enjoy math until later on when she reached college, she realized “it’s something beautiful” and enjoyed it when she really collaborated with peers and not just something you do alone.
At Mission, Ms. Asterlee’s favorite thing is the community and she loves how friendly and supportive everyone is.
I believe that Ms. Asterlee is an amazing teacher who makes sure you understand the work. I always feel supported in her class, especially since it is a hard subject like math. I always understand the work and the way she teaches is super approachable. She’s one of my favorite teachers at Mission High School.
Don’t “only be kind to others but also be kind to yourself. I feel like a lot of times it’s easier to be kind to other people but not very easy to be kind to yourself.”