By Lily Bourne
Name: Wendy Lawson
Years in education: 30
Subjects taught: Just math, everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus except Algebra 2 and Statistics
Schools taught at: Monta Vista for 1 year and Westmont for 29 years
Classrooms (how many were they in): At least 3
Favorite lesson/book/unit: I love the dots lesson for linear inequalities in IM1, I actually just did it! I like doing lessons that are interactive and manipulative for the freshman. In calculus, my favorite is L’Hospital’s rule because of the songs.
How many years at Westmont: 19
How will you spend your retirement: Community service, like volunteering at food banks, libraries. Doing arts and crafts, going to baseball games.
Favorite Westmont memory: I was the first faculty advisor of the GSA with a student named Nguyen Fam. He came back and visited this year because he’s now the president of San Francisco Pride organizing the Pride Parade in San Francisco. He’s an amazing kid and I got to start the GSA with him many years ago.
What will you miss about Westmont: Working with the students. I just really enjoy teaching! I’m not retiring because I don’t enjoy teaching anymore, it’s for a lot of other reasons.
What did students teach you: That “I don’t know” never means I don’t know. Students always know something.
Number of students taught, whose parents you also taught: Yes, but only a couple.
Students whose grandparents you also taught: No!
Former students who became colleagues: Yes, Mr. Schembri!
Days missed: *pulls out a calculator* 200 sick days over 29 years… I only miss like 3 days a year.
Number of detentions given: I’m not a detention person. Very, very few. I’ve held students after class but never assigned a detention.
Why did you want to work in a setting with high school students?
Because they’re old enough to want to learn advanced material, but young enough that they haven’t figured everything out yet. So that discussion of “what do you want to do with your life” and “what can we use this to do in the future” is so interesting!
What’s the weirdest experience that you’ve had in school?
When a kid threw a shoe across the room. It wasn’t at me, just kind of randomly. And the best part was when I called the student’s father, he said “you should’ve kept the shoe and made him walk around in his socks the rest of the day.”