many cases... they treated the child as a friend of the family might. Perhaps the
major quality of these teachers was that they made the initial learning very
pleasant and rewarding.This description could have been written about Skender. At first glance, he seems to fit the
stereotype of an accounting whiz.* But at various stages in his life, Skender aspired to be a disc
jockey, musician, actor, talk show host, and stand-up comedian. Set foot in his classroom, and you’ll
see that he hasn’t quite given up on these dreams. True to his compulsive nature and eclectic taste, he
punctuates his courses with entertaining routines to keep his students engaged, playing four songs at
the start of each class and tossing candy bars to the first students who shout out the correct answers to
music trivia. This is how a poster of a rapper ended up on his wall. “If you want to engage your
audience, if you really want to grab their attention, you have to know the world they live in, the music
they listen to, the movies they watch,” he explains. “To most of these kids, accounting is like a root
canal. But when they hear me quote Usher or Cee Lo Green, they say to themselves, ‘Whoa, did that
fat old white-haired guy just say what I thought he said?’ And then you’ve got ’em.”
By cultivating interest in accounting, Skender believes that his students will be more likely to
invest the time and energy necessary to master the discipline. “C. J. is the epitome of someone who is
empathetic,” Reggie Love says. “He knows more about music than anyone, and he’s always able to
weave it into the lecture to help people connect with the material. When you think about having to
take a hard course, which typically isn’t very interesting, having to keep up with it is challenging. C.
J. made it interesting, and I ended up working harder as a result.” Love earned an A in Skender’s
class. David Moltz, a former student of Skender’s who works at Google, elaborates that Skender
“helps every single student (and person) he comes across in any way possible. He sacrifices
hundreds of hours of his personal life to make an impact on the lives of students and teach as many of
them as possible. He goes out of his way to make everyone that he engages with feel special.”