ABSTRACT
My career as a math teacher began in 1970 with a three-year stretch at Woodrow Wilson High School, a Washington, DC public school near Sidwell Friends. Unlike Sidwell, Wilson was a school with every sort of diversity imaginable. Student families from many countries and many rungs on the economic ladder sent their youngsters there. They came with a wide range of abilities and preparation. As a first-year teacher, I felt fortunate to end up teaching four sections of Geometry as well as the Advanced Placement Calculus course. Neither attendance nor attention were problems in these classes. I’d studied math and physics in college and graduate school, but had taken no education courses. I taught in much the same way I’d been taught—spend time going over the previous night’s homework, explain the new lesson, sometimes have an opportunity to begin working on the new assignment. This was what I knew. I had a lot to learn.
