Hawai'i teachers make trigonometry, science fun

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer

In a world where many girls shy away from higher math, Timothy Cantley has a trigonometry class full of them at Sacred Hearts Academy cheering about sines and cosines.

Pascale Pinner

Timothy Cantley

Creative approaches to teaching and a passion for their subjects made Cantley and Pinner Hawai'i's winners of the $10,000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the highest national award in their professions. President Bush announced the 95 nationwide winners yesterday. More than 60 Hawai'i elementary and secondary teachers have won the award since the program was established in 1983.

Cantley, who teaches at Sacred Hearts, said he likes to entertain his students, adding a little levity to the task of learning trig identities, or formulas, by rote.

These days all he has to do is sniff in the air and say he can smell something for his students to realize there's a trig identity coming. It's goofy, he acknowledges, but also memorable.

"I do some weird things to get the students involved and laughing," he said.

Pinner said she decided to become a teacher while working on a senior thesis that involved laboratory rats. She realized then she didn't really enjoy that kind of work. "I really like kids. I really like talking and sharing, and yes, I'd like to become a teacher," she said in a release from Washington, D.C, where both of the teachers were present to receive the awards.

Pinner takes advantage of Hawai'i's physical environment in her classes on oceanography and astronomy. "We're surrounded by ocean, but the kids haven't really learned about it," she said. "And we have an observatory, but the kids haven't been exposed to it. So I take the kids to do night-time star-gazing. They're enthralled with the heavens and the fact that we can just go and check it out."

Lately, she has used forensic science and crime scene investigation exercises to help teach her students scientific thinking. "Oh, the kids loved that," she said.

Elaine Christian, principal at Hilo Intermediate, said Pinner is a visionary teacher and a curriculum leader at the school. "She has a passion not only for teaching, but also for students — to see them go beyond the expectations set for them."

Two of Cantley's pre-calculus students were pleased to hear about his award. "I think he's a really good teacher," said junior Ann Yamanoha. "He forces the students to think for themselves. He challenges us."

Sheela Jane Menon, a senior in the same class, said Cantley encourages students to think things through when they're trying to solve problems on the board, but is willing to step in and clarify if the students run into difficulty.

While Cantley challenges students, he also tries to keep the atmosphere light. "Mr. Cantley has a dry sense of humor," Menon said. He likes to crack a few dry jokes, then let the students sit there puzzling over them until it dawns on them that it was actually kind of funny, she said.

Deborah Kula, chairwoman of the math department, said sometimes it takes days for students to realize Cantley told a joke.

Kula said Cantley is passionate about what he does in the classroom and refuses to stagnate.

Not only does he stay on the cutting edge with technology and presentation methods for his own classes, he is active with the Hawai'i Council of Teachers of Mathematics and works to train other teachers to work with the tools.

"I think it all boils down to that passion," she said.

As for Cantley's habit of sniffing out trig identities and factors while working on difficult problems, Kula said, "It's enough to break the tension in the class. It's kind of a nice change."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.