Posted Thursday, May 11, 2006, The OG, news

Elizabeth Jockusch, who will retire after teaching for 26 years at Uni High, has been named a winner of the Mathematical Association of America's top award for high school math teachers.

Jockusch is one of 24 teachers from the United States and Canada to be selected for the 2006 Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching. The MAA, a 28,000-member organization based in Washington, D.C., made the announcement earlier this week.

Three Uni students nominated Jockusch for the award — sophomore Alex Zhai and seniors Mo Kudeki and Yuzuko Nakamura. Nominations were solicited from students at the 60 highest-scoring schools in the American Mathematics Contest 12. (Uni students took the AMC exams on Jan. 31.)

Jockusch will receive a cash award, a letter of recognition, a Sliffe Award Winner pin, a certificate from the MAA, a one-year institutional membership in the MAA, 20 subscriptions to the journal Math Horizons for distribution to students, and a one-year membership in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (A complete list of the 24 winners can be found here.)

As part of the nomination process, Kudeki, Nakamura, and Zhai submitted an essay explaining why they believed Jockusch should be honored for her work.

“Mrs. Jockusch is without a doubt the teacher [who] most contributed to our success in the AMC-12 math contest,” they wrote. “In the past three years, Mrs. Jockusch has taught us our school's Algebra II and Calculus I, II, & III courses. … Her class is infamous for being the most rigorous and homework-intensive in the school. Saying, ‘Gotta study for that Jockusch test,' elicits hums of sympathy from all other students.

“However, despite the demanding class, Mrs. Jockusch manages to instill in her students a genuine interest, understanding, and love of mathematics. Her lesson sections are polished and easy to understand from her years of experience with teaching math. Her homework assignments avoid busy work and instead help the student develop a greater understanding and comfortability with the math concepts.”

The nomination essay can be read in its entirety here.

The students concluded: “At the end of this year, Mrs. Jockusch is retiring. We are happy to have had her for the past three years because, frankly, she's just awesome.”

— Gargoyle staff