I had always been pretty good at math, but I never really enjoyed it until 8th grade, when I had Mr. Banderob for Pre-Algebra II.

Mr. Banderob made math interesting, pushing us to use formulas in new ways. He made it goofy, making bad math puns and graphing equations into silly shapes. Most of all, he made math make sense.

I’m still not sure if Mr. Banderob’s brain and mine just work the same way, or if somehow he taught my brain to think like his, but the outcome is the same: when Mr. Banderob explained things, they clicked. It got to the point where I would anticipate how he was going to explain things, or what bad pun he would make. Sometimes he’d make a slip of the tongue, leaving himself open for an awful pun, and would just look at me and warn, ”Don’t even say it.”

I was lucky enough to have Mr. Banderob in 8th grade and again for 10th grade Algebra II. Thanks to him, math made sense to me in a logical, visual, connected way. Now, as a fourth-grade teacher, I struggle to make math make sense for my own students the way Mr. Banderob did for me, and I realize even more how grateful I am to him.

Submitted by Emily Kemper, John Banderob’s student at Milton Academy in 2002 and 2004.