At the end of this year not only will seniors be leaving, a handful of teachers will also be leaving with them. Mr Bradley Margolin is one of them. He started teaching in 1989 and will be retiring by the end of the school year.

After 37 years of teaching Mr. Margolin gained a multitude of memories regarding his teaching career, including his favorite topics and how he kept teaching math interesting.

Some students say that they’re not math people, were you ever like this or did you always love math?
I was always a math person, math was my thing ever since I went to school.

How did you keep teaching math interesting for your students for 37 years?
I keep it from becoming stale because it still gets me excited to teach the material. So to me it doesn’t get boring and then I can put my excitement in the way I teach.

What was your favorite course to teach?
My favorite thing to teach my students is calculus because it takes all the math you’ve ever learned and combines into one course. Everything is used from algebra to geometry and pre-calc.

How did teaching give you the experience to actually teach others?
The way I teach math is by actually understanding the subject so I can better explain it to my students. I have to know where the things I’m teaching are coming from, it was never just about memorizing facts because I wanted to always know where equations and such came from. That’s the way I’ve always taught it, I show students where stuff originated, why it’s there, how it came about.

What concept was the hardest for students to understand?
Algebra is the stuff that students struggle with the most. It’s a problem because algebra is in everything onward, it sounds easy but it’s not. Without it you’re going to struggle throughout the rest of your years learning math.

Was there ever a subject you had to teach that you didn’t like?
Years ago, we had a course called Math Lab, it was primarily about memorizing facts and there was no essence to the course.

Is there anything you would want to change about the curriculum you taught?
I wouldn’t change anything. I like teaching everything, especially calculus, geometry and algebra.

Once the final day comes and you finally close your classroom door for the last time what will you do?
I haven’t really given it much thought on what I’d do, but I know that I would still probably do some tutoring on my own time along with improving my house and going to gym.