S
C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 11
eptember 11, 2001 was a wake-up call for Mark Engerman. The Concord Academy math teacher had been working in finance for more than a decade, devising mathematical models for investment firms and hedge funds. But he’d always wanted to teach. “In college, my dream was to move to Alaska, teach high school math, and coach the cross-country team,” he said, adding wryly, “The dream was before I went to Alaska.” Teaching math was on his mind when he graduated from Brown, but so was Wall Street, and he figured it would be easier to move from finance to teaching some day than vice versa. So he embarked on a career that took him to the Prudential, Barra Consulting, Numeric Investors, and Barclay’s Global Investors. But when the World Trade Center towers came down, all the obituaries of average people touched him. “It was a reminder that I’m not going to live forever,” Engerman said. At the same time, he was starting to tire of finance. “I get bored easily,” he said. “What was new and exciting for a while became routine and less exciting.” His daughter’s birth also spurred some career assessment: “I wanted a career with less stress and one that when I told her what I did, it would be more meaningful than trying to make some people’s retirement funds grow at the expense of other people’s retirement funds.” Once Engerman made up his mind to change careers he didn’t waste any time. By fall 2002—just a year after September 11—he was teaching at Newton Country Day School, where he stayed for three
Henry Kim ’11
FA C ULTY PR OFILE 14
A Dream (Temporarily) Deferred
Mark Engerman
years. Wanting to teach in a public school, Engerman earned alternative teaching certification through a special Massachusetts program and landed a job at Lexington High School, where he taught for two years. But he’d been curious about CA since moving to Concord in 1998. “I’d see the Concord Academy kids around town, and I thought, that would be a good place to teach,” he said. In fall 2007, Engerman joined CA’s mathematics faculty. He has taught almost every course, from Algebra 2 and Accelerated Trigonometry to Accelerated Precalculus and Calculus A, B, and C. If forced to pick a favorite, he admits a particular fondness for Calculus B. “Calc B’s beautiful,” he said. “There are reasonably few techniques, but an incredibly wide range
of applications for them. In any class, I try to teach problem-solving as much as possible. I teach techniques and how to put them together and apply them to new situations. Calc B lends itself particularly well to this.” At CA, Engerman also has taught a popular stock market course, and recently began teaching economics—a class very different from his math classes. “It’s fun to teach a class that has a significant discussion component, a significant writing component,” he said. “I’m developing techniques I’ve never had to use much before.” Indeed, there is more room for debate in an economics class than in an algebra or calculus class. That taps Engerman’s creativity. When one student voiced strong views about energy companies and oil price ceilings, Engerman created a humorous newspaper—which formed the basis of a class writing assignment— featuring the stories that the student’s positions might trigger if he were president of a country. Oil discussion aside, the classroom is far from Alaska. And Engerman’s not coaching cross-country—though he is an avid marathoner who logs forty miles a week when training. But Engerman is fulfilling his early dream to teach high school math. The appeal for him is simple: “I just like working with the kids every day.”
“Faculty Profile” is a new addition to Concord Academy magazine. Look for it in every issue.