Teacher finds art in math

Middle School teacher Dan Powell sees math in Shakespeare.

Or is Shakespeare in the math?

Powell, a math teacher fond of quoting the Elizabethan playwright, often blurs the line between creative arts and linear math for his Summit School students. He also explores this in a book, “One Man In His Time: A Teacher, A Method, And a Madness.”

His book recently became available at Amazon.com among other outlets, and Powell has designated all proceeds to go to Summit, a choice school in the Central Valley School District.

“This book is kind of a right-brain, left-brain battle,” said Powell, who added that it is more an exploration and “unloading.”

“As a teacher, I go back and forth between traditional math teaching, and learning and creative teaching. As adults, we were trained (with) problem sets, algorithms and a systematic approach. I’m not systematic. If you tear all the layers away, I’m an artist.”

At the same time, Powell said he always keeps in mind that some students learn math better with a linear approach while others respond to creativity.

“There’s Shakespeare in the math,” he said. “I wrote in the book that most math teachers won’t see that. Mathematics is problem-solving. It’s a language and science of patterns. There are also patterns in literature, in nature. There are spiritual patterns.”

Powell uses Hamlet as one example. This character used math problem-solving strategies to seek revenge for the death of his father, Powell said, such as guess and check, along with eliminating possibilities.

“I’m always bringing Shakespeare into my classroom, not just the math, but into life problem-solving.”

Powell, a teacher for 11 years, said writing his book allowed him to describe some frustrations with the educational system, talk about personal failures and how he overcame them and to “poke fun” at math teachers.

“It’s tongue-in-cheek,” he said. “I kind of unloaded on the educational system. Any system has contradictions, questions, why we do something, frustrations. I got it off my chest – not putting it down, but getting it out.

“I got it out, and I realized I’m the luckiest guy in the world teaching.”

Powell also gives credit to his mother, Pearl, who he said instilled in him a love of learning and seeing things in a different way. His parents still live in his hometown of Hope, Idaho, where his mother embraced reading and learning for her seven children.

“She’d take us to art exhibits. There would be these metal sculptures and to me it all looked like airplane wreckage, but she could look at something abstract and find meaning in it. She just loves to learn.”

So Powell grew up to enjoy the beauty of many things: Walt Whitman poems, drama, puppetry, the classics and math. “Math is so perfect,” he added. “I enjoy the perfection, the romance. I say romance in the sense of high adventure.”

As a teacher, Powell said, he also sees his role as a life coach for middle-school kids. He enjoys bantering with them and using phrases such as “flap-eared knave.”

Powell wears a tool belt stuffed with such items as calculators, Shakespeare reference cards, a first aid kit and a sideways periscope.

“With students, I’m always telling them: ‘Adapt, modify, overcome and improvise.’

“I love to throw them curve balls. They can handle it after a while. They meet the challenge. There are teachers who need the kids – that’s me.”

Writing his book helped him realize that.

“I fell in love with teaching all over again.”