DAY IN THE LIFE
On Becoming a Teacher
Daren Starnes, The Lawrenceville School
A
s a fledgling mathematician, I was blessed to learn from sev-
eral outstanding teachers. First and foremost, there was
Sammi Yopp , my second-grade teacher at the North Carolina
Charlotte Country Day School. Yopp sparked my mathematical
curiosity and cajoled me into playing chess as a means of honing my
analytic thinking skills. Several years later, my mathematical abilities
were challenged by Sue Sams, my ninth-grade honors algebra II/
trigonometry teacher at East Mecklenburg High School. Sams was,
to put it mildly, a disciple of Mary P. Dolciani. The following year,
I landed in the classroom of another Dolciani disciple, Roger
Bruwhel at West Charlotte High School. Bruwhel was the one who
encouraged me to leave my comfort zone by applying to the North
Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). Off to
NCSSM I went, where I was surrounded by a host of talented
“mathletes,” budding scientists, and computer programmers. As a
1
junior sitting in Dan Teague’s “Calculus with Topics” class one day,
I made the decision to become a high-school math teacher. Why?
Because I witnessed firsthand the tremendous passion, thirst for
understanding, and knack for asking just the right question at the
right moment that allows great teachers such as Teague to inspire
students to do extraordinary things.
From NCSSM, I went on to pursue a bachelor’s of science in
mathematics with secondary teaching certification at the University
of North Carolina, Charlotte (UNCC). At the time, UNCC was
a teaching university, which enabled me to take all my classes with
professors from the outset. At the urging of my professors, I par-
ticipated in Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, where I fell in
love with combinatorics and probability. Having never left the
southern United States until that moment, I admit to experiencing
a healthy dose of culture shock as a westerner in what was then
socialist Budapest.
From Eastern Europe, I accepted an offer to join a graduate
program in pure mathematics at the University of Michigan. As I
was nearing the end of my master’s degree requirements, it became
SEPTEMBER 2008SEPTEMBER 2008AMSTAMSTAT NEWS AT NEWS 2525
SEPTEMBER AMSTAT FINAL.indd 25 8/20/08 2:26:58 PM
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