I got into a discussion on Reddit the other day. The discussion (inspired by the comic below) was about how girls get driven away from STEM interests and told to go into arts and humanities. Research suggests that girls are pushed out by societal standards and beliefs, as well as cruelty in the STEM world. On the Reddit thread, I shared my story about my AP Calculus teacher. He told me I was stupid and bad at math. I would go home and tell my mom, who was an educator, that I was stupid at math. "Where did this come from?" she asked me. Widge Proctor, was the answer.
I remember having a quiz on my desk in his class and was not writing on it. I had done what I knew how to do, and was desperately grabbing to wisps of understanding as they traveled around my brain. It was like trying to grab smoke. I knew I remembered this, kind of. I learned it. I did homework on it. How do I solve this kind of problem? "What are you doing?" Widge asked me, as I stared off into space instead of looking at my quiz. "I'm waiting for an epiphany," I answered back. Widge sneered at me. "It's not coming."
I did not have the worst grade in his class. First semester, with a curve, I got an A. When he decided to punish my class for not trying hard enough or some such garbage, he got rid of the curve. Second semester I got a B. The audacity of this man, telling me I was stupid and bad at math, when I passed his class with good grades. I didn't shout out incorrect answers in class. I studied. I did my homework.
The only reasons I can come up with to why he might have behaved that way is that he was a miserable excuse of a human being and a misogynist. I went to college and studied arts and humanities, driven away from STEM by one of the people who was supposed to encourage students into math. What kind of teacher enjoys bullying teenagers?
After sharing my experiences on Reddit about him, I Googled his name out of curiosity. So... turns out he died three weeks ago. This man changed the trajectory of my life for the worse, and I am glad he is gone. I always should have gone into STEM. I belonged there. Here I am, at forty, weeks from getting a masters degree in math and science education. Suck on that, Widge. I am so, so much better than you ever believed me to be. How sad for you that you were a terrible teacher, unable to support and celebrate your students. What you taught me was what not to do as an educator.
Widge loved to tell the story of asking past classes of students the opposite of infinite and them not knowing, until one student finally said, "Finit." (For the record, we also did not know the opposite of infinite. I understood that the concept of the opposite of infinite was having some number, but did not know the word.) He was not telling the story of a student being clever, using the rules they understood of English to apply to this question Widge was asking. He told it to make fun of how stupid that kid was to say "finit." If you want your students to understand finite, here's a radical idea: teach what it is.
I plan to teach. Lovingly. Radically. Encouragingly. Compassionately. Supportively. Kindly.
Comic source: https://xkcd.com/385/
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