Milwaukee, WI
Teach For America corps member brings his love for math to Milwaukee
Hamidreza Majidi developed a love for math and started teaching it in his home country of Iran two decades ago.
After a lengthy career in Iran’s capital city of Tehran, Majidi, 57, is now bringing his passion to Milwaukee as a corps member of Teach For America Milwaukee. Teach For America, or TFA, is a leadership development program that trains people to become educators and leaders in local communities across the country.
‘A long, long process’
Majidi’s journey to teach in an American classroom began soon after he and his family arrived in the United States in 2013, following the lead of his brother who had lived here since 1974.
Majidi settled in San Diego and initially enrolled in English as a second language classes at San Diego Miramar College to improve his English, driven by his dream of teaching in America.
Despite having the necessary certification to teach in Iran, Majidi had to meet new requirements to teach in the U.S.
“I was a teacher in Tehran, and I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I understood that to be a math teacher I needed to get a bachelor’s degree and a certificate,” Majidi said. “But I knew it was a long, long process.”
Following his English as a second language classes, Majidi pursued an associate degree in applied math. During that time, he worked as a math tutor while studying, gaining experience that now helps him in the classroom.
From there, he followed his daughter to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was accepted to study physics. They both graduated in May, and Majidi started with Teach For America that summer.
Now he is working as a math teacher at Milwaukee’s Carmen High School of Science and Technology- South campus, a charter school located at 1712 S. 32nd St.
Lessons learned outside the classroom
Majidi moved to America with his entire family in his mid-40s. He said there were many times when he wanted to quit on his long journey to becoming a teacher in the U.S., but he learned the importance of patience and perseverance.
“I’m not very young. So imagine that being the head of the family, moving to the United States around age 45, it wasn’t easy to get to this point,” he said. “It was very hard. I had to support my family and there were financial issues. Just many, many different things.”
Despite the challenges that came with pursuing his education and dreams of becoming a teacher, Majidi emphasized that his love of math and wanting others to love it too kept him going.
“Someone told me that pressure made diamonds,” he said. ”It was an amazing statement for me. So the important thing that I learned is that if you are patient, follow your dreams, be flexible and keep going.”
Two graduates, one family
Dorsa Majidi called her dad’s hard work exciting and unbelievable.
“It’s not that I didn’t believe in him because I do,” she said. “But with personal hardships and working to provide and going to school, I just thought my dad would need more time.”
But she said her father has always had an unwavering determination in everything he’s done.
“He really cares about people and his passions, and when he is passionate about something, he puts all of himself into that thing whether it’s his family or school or his students,” she said.
Bringing individuals like Majidi into communities and empowering them to be the best teachers that they can be is the main aim of Teach for America, said Michael Nguyen, executive director.
“TFA recruits those who have leadership experience in their field and have alignment with TFA’s mission,” Nguyen said.
Understanding culture
Majidi said he is taking everything he has learned into the classroom with him.
“My first experience with math was terrible, so for a long time, I didn’t like it,” he said. “But I’ve learned it’s all in how you teach it. When you understand it, it feels great, and I want to find ways to make it enjoyable for students.”
Majidi said it’s important to understand the different cultures and dynamics of the students he’s serving.
“As teachers, we need to make ourselves familiar with the culture, because it is very important to the area you’re working,” he said. “Whether students are African American, Hispanic or Spanish, we need to know something about this culture before diving into that position.”
For more information
For more information, visit the Teach For America website.
Milwaukee Wave coach Marcio Leite on goalkeeper Jerry Perez’s offense
Milwaukee Wave Marcio Leite tells the origin story of the rookie goalkeepr who has become a serious scoring threat in the MASL.
Shoves escalated between the Milwaukee Wave and San Diego Sockers and fans got involved in the unpleasantries, turning the conclusion of Game 1 of the MASL championship series ugly.
In the final seconds of the Sockers’ 5-4 victory April 22 at the UWM Panther Arena, Wave defender Tony Walls took a kick to the groin on a play that ended any chance for a traditional exchange of handshakes and hugs.
Spirited jawing turned into jostling between players, and then fans joined in the altercation by pelting Sockers players with debris and drinks. Players retaliated. As the situation grew more chaotic, a security officer requested the presence of police who were at the Arena.
At the same time, officials were reviewing the play. Several minutes after the game the announcement came that Sockers defender Cesar Cerda had been issued a red card for violent conduct, making him ineligible for Game 2 on April 24 in Oceanside, California.
“It just got heated at the end [between] two high-level teams,” veteran Wave forward Ian Bennett said. “They’re very competitive, and who wants to win it? The rest, it was a hard game to ref, right? Because it’s a big game. It’s big final. Emotions are there.
“To be honest, our emotions got the best of us, because we’ve got to be smarter than that, right? We don’t need to play in their hands, but kudos to them, they won, and we just got to regroup and lick our wounds and come back on Friday ready to go.”
A loud and larger-than-usual crowd turned out for the final home game of 2025-26.
Two quick goals by Bennett early in the fourth quarter pulled the Wave within a goal at 4-3, but Milwaukee couldn’t maintain the spark, and Sockers midfielder Leonardo De Oliveira turned the momentum back around with 5 ½ minutes left. The Wave killed a two-minute San Diego power play resulting from too many men on the field, but by the time goalkeeper Jerry Perez gave the Wave another goal, just 33 seconds remained.
So now for the Wave to win an eighth arena soccer title, it must win back-to-back against the team that finished the regular season with the best record.
Milwaukee lost the opening game of its quarterfinal and semifinal series and won a regulation game followed by a quarter-length knockout game each time to advance. But those were at home; this time they’ll go on the road to play against the team that finished with the best record in the regular season. Game 3 would be a full-length game April 27.
“Very difficult,” first-year Wave head coach Marcio Leite said of the challenge that awaits.
“We’ve done it before. We beat them in their house. But we need to be smarter. And we need to play better. … We need to create better chances, then we need to make sure our shots are on target.”
(This story was updated to add new information.)
The number of yearly opioid overdose deaths in Milwaukee County continues to decline. Compared to 2022, there’s been a 54% decrease in fatal opioid overdoses, according to the county’s latest update to its Overdose Dashboard.
At a press conference April 21, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said that sharing this progress comes with mixed feelings.
“That data also tells us that 387 Milwaukee County residents lost their lives to drug overdoses last year,” said Crowley. “These are our neighbors. These are our loved ones, family members.”
In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared deaths from prescription painkillers an epidemic. That’s when local governments nationwide filed lawsuits against the parties involved in manufacturing, distributing and promoting opioids.
Dr. Ben Weston is the county’s chief health policy advisor. Weston explained the severity of how the nationwide opioid crisis was felt in Milwaukee County.
“We had one person dying every 16 hours from overdose,” said Weston. “Since then, there’s been a lot of work.”
Weston added that 17 people died from an overdose in a single weekend in 2023, which he described as “unimaginable levels of opioid use in our community.”
But 2023 was also the year that Milwaukee County learned it would receive $111 million over the next 18 years through opioid settlements. Weston said much of the county’s work has been preventative, like creating affordable housing, effective transportation and accessible mental health services.
Other efforts have addressed the crisis head-on, like installing free, no-questions-asked harm reduction vending machines, adding naloxone to emergency response vehicles and creating programs to prevent drug use among people who are incarcerated.
Weston said people exiting incarceration are susceptible to the highest risk period for overdose. As for the communities that face the highest risk of fatal overdoses, American Indian and Alaska Native residents are impacted the most.
Jeremy Triblett is the prevention integration manager at the Milwaukee Department of Health and Human Services. Triblett said the county’s FOCUS initiative, which stands for Featuring Our Community’s Untold Stories, is directly addressing Milwaukee’s Black, brown and Indigenous communities “to assess how they’re accessing their substances, and culturally, how does that intersect with their cultural norms.”
A community advisory board, comprised of people of color, is helping county officials facilitate discussions on harm reduction outreach.
Brice Turang drove in four runs and David Hamilton had four hits as the Milwaukee Brewers routed the Detroit Tigers 12-4 on Tuesday night.
Despite missing their top three hitters, the Brewers put 19 runners on base and scored in double digits for the second time this season. They have won five of six.
All nine Milwaukee starters reached base at least once, and Detroit catcher/knuckleballer Jake Rogers limited the damage by pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
Detroit lost its second straight after winning eight of nine.
Milwaukee used speed and small ball to take a 3-0 lead in the second inning. Garrett Mitchell led off with an infield single, took second on a walk and scored on Sal Frelick’s base hit. Hamilton beat out a bunt to load the bases.
After Blake Perkins struck out, Turang lined a two-run single to right. Turang, though, got caught in a rundown between first and second and the Tigers threw Hamilton out at the plate when he tried to score.
Detroit loaded the bases with no one out in the fourth, but Grant Anderson relieved Harrison and got Javier Báez to ground into a double play. That made it 3-1, but Anderson struck out pinch-hitter Kerry Carpenter to end the inning.
The Brewers made it 5-1 in the seventh on RBI singles by Turang and William Contreras.
Milwaukee added seven runs in an 11-batter eighth, an inning that included the fourth triple of Gary Sanchez’s 12-year MLB career.
Detroit scored three times in the ninth inning to cut the final margin to eight runs.
The teams continue the series on Wednesday night with the second of three games. Detroit RHP Casey Mize (1-1, 2.78) is scheduled to face RHP Chad Patrick (1-0, 0.95).
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