Riding Uphill
Riding Uphill
Samantha Kelly
This edition's teacher spotlight comes from the math department, Mr. Gandy, who has been teaching at Flagstaff High School for 
11 years now. He has decided to go back to school to pursue getting his master’s degree. In an interview with him he said he didn’t have any ulterior motive with getting this higher degree. It said the opportunity presented itself he would pursue higher education. Through a program at NAU Mr. Gandy is able to pursue his master’s degree for very little or nothing. It is called the Arizona Teachers Academy Scholarship. This opportunity allows him to get his masters and have it paid off as long as he teaches in Arizona as long as it took him to gain his degree. This program is specifically designed for Arizona teachers, and or people looking to become teachers.
While he's well into teaching now that was not always the plan. He originally was pursuing a bio-medical science major and was going for a career in physical therapy. He stated, “I kinda realized my passion was mathematics.” Mr. Gandy went on to describe his disappointment as he finished the required math classes for his major. “I just decided to take more math classes,” he continued, going on to say that was an easy progression into teaching math as he realized that was something he could do. He made the decision to start teaching naturally.
In his 11 years of teaching, Mr. Gandy said that nearly every year he teaches the same two classes, Algebra 1 and Honors Algebra 2. I asked him if he had a preference and he said he liked teaching both. He continued saying he really had a great time teaching older students as with the freshman a lot of time is often delegated to classroom management. He spoke of the one year he did teach geometry. He described it as a more creative type of math. He said he enjoyed it and he liked to teach it again.
Outside of the classroom he’s still involved with the school. He’s one of the academic advisors of the mountain biking club. He says that the mountain biking club typically ran from July to November. Anyone is welcome to join, but he states that the tough part is getting people bikes. Although there are sometimes work arounds as the club can sometimes provide rental bikes for this season. He says that the mountain biking club has a strong community built around it. He said that biking and math are parallel. He draws parallels between biking and teaching, saying “try to jump on, try and give it a try, and challenge yourself.”