Walk in to Eric Bruns’ math classroom on a typical Thursday morning and odds are you’ll find him chatting with his students while knotting a tacky tie around his neck.
These ties are of all sizes, textures, colors, and patterns, including one that lights up and makes music for the holidays. They’re just a few of the accessories that enhance Bruns’ AP Calculus student’s experience in his classroom.
“We have many long standing traditions,” Bruns said. “The thing that has the most history is ‘Bad Tie Thursday’, a tradition that’s steeped in honor. Students are allowed to participate as well. I think I’m pushing 60 or 70 of [the ties].”
Bruns has another tradition in his classroom that has a little bit more meaning in the life of a high school student.
“I was cleaning out my office once, and as I was cleaning out the drawers I found all of these tiny little books of wisdom, things that had been given to me in high school,” Bruns said. “I thought that it was a shame that I had all of these books just collecting dust and not doing anybody any good.
This realization created the custom that takes place every Wednesday in room A106.
“I thought, ‘I have all these students at my disposal and what better way to use that audience to impart mounds and mounds of wisdom on them’,” Bruns said. “‘Words of Wisdom Wednesday’ was then created. We keep 8 [books] in the cycle at a time and I roll a die. Then we pick a number and we read that page and meditate on the wisdom and think about how we can better our lives based on the wisdom.”
This weekly practice proves to benefit students.
“Words of Wisdom Wednesdays give me meaning to life that powers me through the school week,” senior Lisa Bender said.
And finally, on Friday the students take a quick break from math to listen to stories of a policeman from across the country.
“My younger brother is a police officer in Orlando,” said Bruns. “When he became a police officer he would tell me these stories, and eventually I had so many that we started making a feature out of that and it’s referred to as ‘Officer Bruns’ weekly crime update’.”
Bruns fills the last half of each week with fun, but what about the first two days, which can be the hardest to get through?
“People feel like there is a void on Monday and Tuesday, but I feel like if we throw more things out there it takes away from the specialness of the other days,” Bruns said.
Although these practices may seem unconventional to some teachers who want to create a productive learning environment, Bruns has a different idea.
“It doesn’t [benefit class] in any way, shape, or form. There is no educational benefit at all,” Bruns said. “The only thing it does is it comes somewhere around the halfway point of class. It’s usually something to break up the monotony of math. Seriously, math is ridiculously boring. Who wants to sit and do math for 70 minutes?”
But what really has set Bruns apart from other Seaholm teachers is how well he understands his students and how teenagers in high school learn. One way he helps out his students is by reading letters that the class before them wrote about the frustrations of Calculus and how to get through it with a sense of accomplishment.
“I’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been teaching calculus,” Bruns said. “It stands apart from other math classes simply because it has the concrete ultimate goal of the AP exam. After a full year of this it turns into a different class than a typical geometry or PreCalculus class.”
At the end of the year, Bruns asks his Calculus students to write a letter to next year’s seniors, giving them guidance on a peer to peer level.
“It is to tell them what they need to know,” Bruns said. “What did you do that worked for you? What didn’t work for you? What you did do. What you probably should have done. Near the beginning of the class, I pass out all of them to the students and they get to read them.”
The beginning of the year is not the only time Bruns brings out the letters. He also utilizes them when his students are particularly discouraged.
“We had a particularly brutal test in the BC Calculus class and they left the class sad,” Bruns said. “I went through last year’s letters and I found about 20 of them that had particular things in them. I photocopied them and went around later in the day to hand them out. All of these things were written by last year’s students basically saying ‘It’s okay to bomb a test every now and then. Keep working hard, show effort and Bruns will take care of your grade.’”
“On almost a daily basis we call Bruns a rat, but after he gave us the letters, we realized how much he truly cares about his students,” senior Erica Reich said.
Feedback from students proves that this technique works for them and keeps them optimistic about such a challenging class.
“Nobody likes failing, but you just do from time to time,” Bruns said. “Some students have said that they were glad I showed them that and if I didn’t read those letters to them, they probably would’ve dropped the class after first trimester.”
Other than techniques to keep his students entertained during a strenuous class, Bruns also has many educational practices that help his students enjoy his class as much as possible.
“There are days in which I may feel burned out by the end of the day and it might be easier to give the students 20 minutes to start on their homework, but I know that those 20 minutes would be better spent working through problems together under my guidance,” Bruns said. “So regardless of my energy level, we press on because it’s in the students’ best interest. It’s all about the kids.”
Knowing how to communicate with his students is also one of Bruns’ specialties.
“When students ask questions, knowing how to answer is important,” Bruns said. “Depending on the situation I try not to give the quick yes or no answer. I try to answer the question with another question to help them think about it and come up with their own answer.”
Working with students for over nine years, Bruns has learned how to help students reach their full potential with everything they do in his math class, as well as a mentality to carry through life.
“I always set the bar higher than what students want,” said Bruns. “For the most part students don’t want to work as hard as I want them to work. If I want the student to become a seven, I have to set the bar at 10.”
Bruns insists that the grade the student comes out with is not the most important thing to take away from the class, but rather an understanding of success.
“The whole idea of grading has nothing to do with this,” said Bruns. “They are two separate issues; my level of expectation in the class and grades. You don’t want to make things so ridiculously hard that students are frustrated at all times, you want to give them opportunities to succeed.
“At the same time you don’t want to give them fluff opportunities to succeed, and some students will say ‘No I don’t care I will take that easy A over that hard earned B minus’. And I understand that, and I understand student’s goals, but that’s not my goal in the classroom.”
So what is Bruns’ secret to having almost all his students thrive in an extremely hard class? It’s his love of math, and an even greater love for his students.
“As far as in class goes, keeping things light is important,” said Bruns. “It makes my job a lot more fun. I love coming to school every day. I’m happy to be here, and I hope that that’s something that the students can see.”
