As part of a start-of-year survey, students were asked to complete the prompt "Something I want to know about my math teacher is..." Below is a collection of responses to those questions.
Can you juggle? Not really.
Do you like cats? Within reason.
Have you ever fished freshwater? Back when I was a Boy Scout, years and years and years ago.
Stuy or Tech? Yuck, neither.
Do you dance? Yup, but not, like, professionally. Just around my apartment.
Favorite pair of socks? The grey ones with dinosaurs on them.
Favorite superhero? Marvel it's Jean Grey, DC it's either Green Lantern or Batman.
Favorite ice cream? I don't really like ice cream, but I guess the horchata ice cream I had once.
What is your favorite TV show? Movie? Anime? Cartoon? Babylon 5 is probably my favorite TV show, but I think The Wire is probably the best. Favorite movie is Serenity, which was the Firefly movie. My favorite anime is this show called Tsubasa Chronicle, but I also thing Neon Genesis Evangelion is amazing and everyone should try it. Cartoon is probably Avatar the Last Airbender.
What TV shows are you currently watching? More than my schedule allows. Quantico, How to Get Away with Murder, Flash, Arrow, iZombie, Gotham, Fargo, Doctor Who, Marvel Agents of Shield, Black-ish, Empire. Probably more.
Do you watch Supernatural? Not since season 7, and even then I wish I had stopped after season 5.
Do you like Harry Potter? Yup.
What do you do outside of being a math teacher? Obviously I watch a lot of TV. Play games, both video and board, with my friends. Go out to eat. Think about traveling but don't actually do it. Think about teaching a lot.
When did you start teaching? I taught in Japan for two years right after college, and then taught at a small school in East Harlem in 2013 for a year before coming to TBLS.
Why did you choose TBLS? Because the teachers and students are awesome.
Did you always want to be a teacher? When I was younger I wanted to build robots, but I hated my professor so I wound up going in a different direction for a while before figuring out I should be a teacher.
Were you always interested in math? I was always good at math, which meant I enjoyed class. I like the logic and the "absolute truth" of it. You're usually either right or wrong, and I liked trying to solve the different puzzles.
What is the best way one can learn math? How do you learn math? I think practice helps the most, just finding problems to do or redoing problems you struggled with originally. It also helps me to figure out how different topics fit together. I know that if I don't understand something early on, that's going to mess me up later, so I try to make sure I'm on top of things.
What did you do when Math got hard for you? In grad school I had an advanced Geometry course that made no sense to me at first, so I spent hours with the professor figuring out how to have things make sense. I also spent hours on the homework sets with my friends as we all tried to explain it to each other.
What's your favorite thing in the world? Fall weather and the smell of roast chicken.