Reflections from Mike Gibbons on 33 Years of Teaching Mathematics

After 33 years of teaching Mathematics, 20 of them spent here at Surbiton, here are my answers to some oft-asked questions ....

1. How has teaching Mathematics changed in the last 20 years?
I could answer this in 2 ways. Fundamentally, not at all - I do the same lessons and give the same explanations to the same questions now that I have always done. On the other hand, the advance of technology has altered the delivery and the presentation considerably- if you had told me 10 years ago that I would become so attached to the Showbie app I'd have laughed at you.

2. What has been my most successful teaching strategy?
To always remember how I felt during my 3rd year of University when I was studying Quantum Theory (specifically Dirac's equations). For the first time in my life I didn't have a clue what was going on and I always assume that there will be at least one person in my classroom who might be feeling the same way.

3. What or who inspired you to teach Mathematics?
Definitely who. Peter Bentley, my own teacher of Mathematics. My aim every lesson is to be as good as he was. And typing this out with 3 days of my career remaining, it still is.

4. What is the most memorable Surbiton moment that you have had in a classroom/teaching in general?
At Surbiton, the classroom one happened very recently. My wonderful, wonderful Y12 Further Maths AS class of last year thought it was my birthday and brought in a cake, resplendent with candles and a firework. I was paralysed with fear because there were public exams going on at the end of the corridor and I was resigned to the smoke alarm going off and the exam having to be evacuated. All
the time I was thinking 'we evacuated the exams for a World War 2 bomb and now we 're going to have to evacuate them for a lemon drizzle cake' - thing is, it wasn't my birthday. As for teaching in general, I would probably say the series of five Maths podcasts that I did alongside Miss Reeves. It is something that I never thought that I would do and it was such tremendous fun. They are still available
on Spotify, by the way. ...

5. What is your favourite area of Mathematics?
Complex numbers - the solution to so many problems we never knew existed.

6. What is the funniest thing anyone has said to you in a classroom?
At my first school in Didcot, I was trying to get across the concept of infinity, which led to the following exchange ...
MG: Tony, think of the largest number that you can. Tell me when you're ready ...
Tony: 20, Mr Gibbons.
Tony wasn't joking - Tony didn't joke about Mathematics.

7. Do you have any plans for your retirement?
Plenty. ...
- I speak decent Spanish but want to learn more languages - I am now learning French, Italian, Romanian and Russian.
- I want to re-learn the mathematics of my university days - I look at the notes that I still have from those days and think &I used to be able to do that~
- I will be spending one week per month, every month, travelling to a new place. Presently I have 10 trips booked for next year from September to June (Gdansk, Chisinau, Plovdiv, Katowice, Tbilisi, Skopje, Yerevan, Narva, Sarajevo and Pristina, if you are interested).

8. Any advice you would wish to pass on?
- Work abroad one day- working in Madrid changed my outlook on life.
- Keep in touch with your schoolmates - they know you in ways that nobody else can or will.
- Always show your working.