Leo Feler, 10th Grade Geometry
Jaime Escalante Mathematics Teacher Awards 1996
Teacher: Nowshad Monishi, Reseda High School, Los Angeles Unified School District
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
- Horace Mann
I never really enjoyed mathematics because I could not find a use for it in daily life. Sure, when I would go shopping, I would add up the prices and calculate the sales tax to see whether I would have enough money, but I could not see where I would ever use anything more advanced, such as geometry.
It would have been impossible for me to learn geometry in class because, if not for the encouragement of my teacher, I would have had a complete lack of inspiration.
Yet, during the first week of school, my teacher focused mainly on making the classroom a friendly environment. Students worked in groups on mathematics puzzles, we all got to know one another and, eventually, became friends.
This environment motivated me to participate because I was no longer embarrassed to make a mistake in class. It was acceptable.
My teacher explained that all of us, at one time or another, "took a new approach." Answers might be "a new approach," but they were never wrong. So my peers would not giggle or laugh if I offered "a new approach"; we all supported one another and were all eager to offer solutions to the problems.
Throughout the year, my teacher offered inspirational problems. One was to measure your shadow and the shadow of a tree and, by setting up a proportion, calculate the tree's height. I was not inspired. I thought, "How many times do I need to know how high a tree is?"
So he gave me a different perspective: my football gets lodged in a tree, I have a ten foot pole in my garage but, to reach it, I need to ask my parents to move both cars, take out the six foot ladder, and climb to the loft to get the pole.
Will I, with the ladder and the pole, be able to reach the football? The proportion calculation would tell me (and maybe save a lot of time and effort!). Hands-on problems like these made geometry interesting. I found a use for it!
I also came to enjoy mathematics. I raised my hand so often that my teacher asked me, privately, to give others a chance; to compensate, he would challenge me with difficult puzzles during lunch. I was so involved that I no longer cared whether I was learning something useful; I was focused simply on meeting the challenge.
Geometric proofs became a game, and winning this game became my goal. From making my math homework the last thing to do (and dreading it), it became the first thing I did, as soon as I got home. It may sound sick, but I loved every minute.
At the end of the year, my teacher gave me his Algebra II book and encouraged me to study it. Even though I spent my summer in Brazil visiting my family, I would sit at my grandparents' apartment window watching the waves lap at the sand while working on my math... and I still had a great time!
Thanks to my teacher's inspiration and my determination to beat his challenges, I took calculus in my sophomore year and had the second highest grade in the class - instead of being in Algebra II with a C average. Through his astute genius, warm personality, and generosity, he hammered into me higher goals and a different, more potent personality.
