Quotes from a high school math teacher
I can't recall exactly what, but a few weeks ago something triggered my recollection of a math teacher I had in high school in Seminole, Florida. If I recall correctly, I had him for one semester of Algebra 2 in 10th grade and then again for a full year of Calculus my senior year (1985-86). Besides being one of the better teachers I had in high school, David Everling had an exceptionally dry wit that resonated with many of his pupils. I vividly recall writing down 15-20 of his best witticisms on my newly-purchased Amiga 1000 computer during 12th grade, but that list has long since vanished. Here are a few of the gems from that list that I DO still recall. If you happen to run across this page while googling SuperDave & can recall any additional quotes, please add them as comments!
- "Men, pay attention, you might need to know this someday! Women, you should pay attention too -- you might marry a man someday who needs to know this!" (I never said he was politically correct, did I?)
- "Men, women, Marlo..." (Marlo was a girl in his Calculus class and a common target of his jokes)
- "U is ah....what is you?" (in reference to du/dt calculus examples)
- "I'm so bright my Dad calls me son (sun)"
- "I remember the first time I saw this. It must have taken me a whole 4 or 5 milliseconds to understand it."
- "Where I come from, we learn this in 2nd grade. I come from Krypton."
- "You can't mix apples and oranges unless you're a fruit!"
posted by Mike Burr @ 12:50 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I had Everling at East Lake High School my senior year '98. It's definitely the same guy. I heard he retired a few years ago. What a loss for future students. One of the top three teachers I've ever had, and definitely THE funniest. "Surely (Shirley), ...." was one of his favorite openers.
The best teacher I had.
Cats and dogs living together; mass hysteria.
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048 . . .
and he would go on and on - this, just as home computers were hitting the market (1970)
He was one of my favorite teachers while at Seminole. Bob Winslow
I second the dry wit!
Just seeing this in 2020. I had Dave Everling at Seminole for Algebra 3/Trig in 11th grade and again the next year for Math 5 (calculus). I was a frequent target of his barbs and practical jokes but he delighted me. When I became a teacher (at age 50) I borrowed some of his material that I used repeatedly over the years. My favorite was to brag to a student, in fact BET the student, that I could do between 2 and 3 hundred pushups in less than one minute. The students always fell for this, just as I did. Once the bet was made I would get into the pushup position and have someone watch the clock's second hand and tell me when to start. I would take my sweet time, appearing to struggle through the first two pushups, taking almost one minute just for those. Then I'd finish the 3rd pushup just before the minute ended, stand up, clap the dust off my hands and say, "Well, kid, you owe me." That's what Dave did to me. (You see, 3...is between 2 and 300.)
Oh, yeah, Dave Everling taught me well!
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