Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your Math Teacher

Did you have one that stood out, good or bad?

My eighth grade algebra teacher, Mr. Ledoux, burned me in front of class in a way that I felt betrayed. As a result it was many years before I saw the subject as anything other than something to survive so other goals could be reached.

Somehow I wound up with a doctorate in the subject.

For me 2 squared was my grandparents in the back of the 56 Buick, so yeah, that's where math lost it's appeal for me.

My college Trig and Calculus teacher. She was one, smoking Cuban.

Funny, all my college math professors were women. All my Jr. High and High School math teachers were male. Now that I think about it, all my Literature teachers in college were male and just the opposite in the younger years.

Weird.

Jim Mueller at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I had him for my second quarter of calculus (1981 his first quarter teaching), differential equations and an experimental graduate course he put together, perturbations. I used his office hours to help with some of my physics and engineering courses. A Cal Tech PHD and just an outstanding professor in every way and a crazy good fiddle player that would join us around the fire at beach parties playing away. From the university website.

Mueller, Jim

Ph.D. California Institute of Technology
Interests: Applied mathematics, asymptotic analysis, singular perturbation theory

I think the one I had was one o'them weird people.

He was a genius, but his facial expression never changed.

He whupped my ass with one of them damn planks that they called a paddle in Kentucky one time for skippin' class,.....his facial expression never altered. It was like getting paddled by one of them stone heads on Easter Island.

I thought about killin' him,......kinda hated to take it that far.

Thanks for your good work mathman, Perhaps you can teach me advanced algebra someday, not that I'll have any use for it.

Yes. Mr. Robert Lee. My 8th grade math teacher. Was a Marine in the late 30's on into WWIl. Was stationed at the London Barracks during the blitz. Talked about being able to go on board the HMS Prince of Wales after its return from the battle Of the Denmark Strait and before its ill-fated transfer to the Pacific.

He was a man of immense knowledge on a wide variety of subjects.

Math teacher in high school wanted you to think.
Not just....... Regurgitate what he said.
If you thought of a proof in a way he didn’t....
Extra points and an atta Boy
Got a NY state Regents Diploma in Math because of him.
Went to college in Kentucky and tested into 2nd semester sophomore Math.

Did a proof and it was wrong......because it wasn’t regurgitated....

I asked was it true......yes. But do it my way. Got an A but learned little.

Be it a Steak, motorcycle, lover or teacher ........once you’ve had a great one.......you know the difference

Mr Contreras did me a great favor by flunking me in geometry - then explaining that I lacked the background to succeed. (LOUSY algebra teacher). I re-took algebra in summer school, then re-took geometry (95% avg), then trig (93% avg) from Mr Emmons - a Bataan vet (the typical sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and gaunt build) - who could make math come alive!
Those two led me to the math dept at the local university.

Mark? Was the Bataan vet one of the New Mexico NG coastal artillery survivors?

Small high school, graduating class of 45 students.

Carl Proshceck, taught Geometry (sophomore year), Algebra II (junior year), Math Anaysis and Physics (senior year).

7'th grade and 8'th grade math, and Freshman Algebra 1 were taught by a sub human idiot.

But good old Mr. Proshceck was a gift from God to any student hungry to learn. His geometry class taught me more about critical thinking than any other experience in my life. Even though I scored 100% throughout that senior course of "Math Analysis". I really have no idea what it was about. Sure wasn't Trig, as I was wholey unprepared for Freshman Calc in College. Withdrawing from calc four weeks into the first semester was the end of my math experience.

My best math teacher was a lady by the name of Kathy Stover. Had her for Algebra II as a junior in high school. She was the one and only good math teacher I had. I took Calculus l,II, and III as well as ordinary differential equations in my undergrad years. I am now in graduate school for a Masters in Chemical engineering and am learning about partial differential equations as well as tensor mathematics on my own. I'm really enjoying it and in the Internet age, what with YouTube and other online resources I am starting to feel like I am actually learning mathematics for the first time since my junior year in high school.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that truly good and inspiring math teachers are as rare as hens teeth. If you've had a truly good teacher count your blessings.

Back in the 60's, Calc III at my college was taught by an old guy with a theory. Every class of 100 students will have 1 or 2 extra brights students who can do it no matter how hard it is. The theory was that if they could do it, the other 98 were sloughing off. He taught to those 1 or 2. His tests were incredibly difficult. The engineering students were having to take the class up to 3 times to pass so they could get on with their engineering subjects. He was tenured, of course, but the school finally busted him to teaching remedial math for no credit until they could force him to retire early. I didn't need the class so I dropped it at midterm. At the time, I was way below passing but I was in the top 1/3 of the class.

I had two math teachers that made a serious difference.

One was 8th grade. I was the new kid in school and he saw me falling in with bad influences. We had 3 groups that took all their classes together. I don't know why he did it, didn't know him, don't know why he cared, but he moved me from the "B" group to the "A" group and ... it changed my history. In hindsight probably one of the most significant events of my life.

The other was my high school math teacher. He was a friend's dad.. He was hot headed, probably would have gotten fired today, but he had passion for math and knack for showing how to apply it to real world problems. I only took 1 math class NOT from him in 4 years. 2 years after I graduated he stopped teaching high school and went back for his PhD at the same university I was attending. It was interesting to connect on a different level.

I could say much the same about my high school biology and chemistry teachers in slightly different contexts.

My math teacher taught me how to count up to 20 without taking off my shoes!

Had one other great Marh teacher. Ma Burton. In the 60's she drove a 912 Porsche.

Senior year and I'm taking 3 periods of math. One was what they called Bonehead math. The class you took if you only took one math class in your entire High School career. Real basic.

She wanted to know what I was doing there. " I need practice in arithmetic. " she understood.

Mainly MotorHeads. So she started with gear ratios.......she had their attention.

Then cubic displacement. And she explained WHY. And they knew they could ask questions and not get put down. She wouldn't repeat it again. She would take a different slant. Till they got it.

Now she had given them confidence and they trusted her. She taught them things they could use.

By the end of rhe year she got some of them thinking about the odds in different card games.

One kid was rabid about it. Suddenly the advanced math probability course kids were asking him questions.........

Anyway. The 912.......she is leaving school one day in line and behind a bus. She hears brakes squeal behind her and rams the bus in front of her.

Cops ask WTF!!???!!

She points to the scratched hood......."Body Work...."

Points to the undamaged rear...."You know a good Porsche mechanic within 50 miles?"

Enough said. Grand Lady.

I had a similar experience. Had a high school algebra teacher that couldn't pound it into my head. I dreaded that class more than anything. In college, I needed more math, and signed up for a basic algebra with trepidation...but whizzed through with straight A's. Went right up through calculus from there without a hitch.

I do believe it was the teacher, but don't hold anything against the guy.

As a Freshman, I helped most of the guys on the football team pass Geometry... I was always pretty good in math...

Our High School, was too big and short on teachers in math... so I never got to take Calc or Trig..

you were assigned by lottery... and it seemed everyone who wanted to take it, didn't get picked for it..
and everyone who wanted to avoid it like the plague, ended up getting assigned to it via the lottery..
and they wouldn't allow us to trade spots...

This was Fairfax County VA, right next to Arlington County.

So instead I took 6 levels of Algebra.. Level 3 and 4 during my junior year..
and level 5 and 6 my Senior Year.,...

it was the advanced math group I was assigned to... our Teacher was Col. Lundberg
a retired Army Colonel.. WW 2 and Korean War Vet along with the very early years
of Vietnam....like 58 to 62. Was a Green Beret over there...

When Col Lundberg came to our High School, he had just retired from the Army...
His last assignment for the last 6 or 7 years of his career was teaching Math at West Point.
and had been in the Army just a hair over 30 years...

He was from Minnesota, but his daughter lived in Fairfax County, her husband in the military
and stationed at the Pentagon...

A real active guy, he didn't feel like retiring.. so he got a high school teaching job...

Guy had no patience for the hippie types, but we had a lot of military kids in our school..
so that was the students he liked to teach...he could take complicated subjects and make
them pretty easy to understand...was a wonderful and outstanding teacher...

and pretty well respected...

My wife was a HS math teacher for 37 years, for the 30 years we have been married she has also taught summer school and tutored during the school year. Now retired for 3 years she continues to tutor and substitute teach, this provides us with a nice income to suplement social security. She uses the money to pay for home improvements, going out to eat and to the movies and to help our two grown daughters. The talent for math was passed on to our oldest daughter who graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in accounting, completing a 5 year program in 4 years. She recently passed her CPA exam and is in her fifth year with one of the biggest accounting firms in town. I struggled with math in school and was a C student at best, when I matured and went back to college in my mid 20's math made more sense to me and I was an A student then and in math courses I took in later years. Most of the courses I took alter on were math that applied to my job and were easier to understand because I was applying the material nearly every day on the job.

My wife's math teacher was probably one of the worst ever. I heard stories from everybody about him, but never had to take anything from him due to having transferred to the school in between freshman and sophomore years and already having the one required math class out of the way. He was the poster child for why you need to take classes in how to teach as opposed to just trying to teach a class on stuff you know a lot about. He knew math inside and out but was a total failure at imparting it, let alone controlling a bunch of kids.

I had a bitch for a math teacher in junior high. I pissed her off somehow and she booted me from beginning algebra into a general math class with a bunch of stoners that actually smoked dope in class. The teacher was this nutcase who was a nice enough lady but had no control over the class and all the rejects got put in there. It was the credit that got me past the aforementioned teacher though.

So then I had NO knowledge of algebra entering college. I had a wonderful College Algebra teacher that got me through it with a "B". He's got a house right next to one we own in town and is a great neighbor. IOW I never see or have any interaction with him. I did see him at the gunshop a few years back. He's a hunter and fisherman.