#memorablemomentsineducation #19:
Before I decided to study English, I was going to be a math teacher, geometry to be specific. I wanted to be a math teacher because of one woman, Mrs. Wilhite, who taught me algebra and geometry. I idolized her to the point where I write my 7s (still!) with a line through the middle because that’s how she did it. My previous math teacher sat in front of an overhead projector, unrolling problem after problem while she explained in a monotone voice how to solve for x. But in Mrs. Wilhite’s room, she danced from one side of the chalkboard to the other, almost singing, as she showed us the quadratic formula and the Pythagorean Theorem. I remember her room as being a space filled with warmth, love, and laughter. We were taught by a woman who was so very human as she asked us if something was “gelling” or admitted mid-sentence that she’d forgotten what she was talking about. Math was not precision as much as it was inspiration.
Years later, I got to know Mrs. Wilhite outside the classroom as I became friends with her son (Brian Wilhite). I happened to be hanging out at their house one night, and she came down the stairs, apparently from reading some work of fiction. At the time, I was shocked to see the math teacher was a reader too, a rather voracious one at that, and I realized we don’t have to be just one thing. It then made sense why she had a “Vocab Word of the Week” on the bulletin board in her classroom, which coincidentally never changed from the word “enigma” all year long. It also explains why when I teach students to organize their writing, I explain it in terms of writing a geometric proof. Really, I didn’t want to be a math teacher as much as I wanted to be Mrs. Wilhite when I grew up. I’ve come close. Excuse me while I sashay off to class…