From Student to Teacher

Taylor Tan '06 has come full circle at Marin Academy in ways he never predicted.

After graduating, Taylor headed to the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in Conservation and Resource Studies, specifically focused on California fisheries. His first year in college, Taylor didn't participate in anything MA-related—but that year would prove to be an outlier. He got a phone call asking him to return to Marin Academy as Assistant Track Coach for the 2007-2008 school year. Taylor accepted and, two days a week, he drove across the bridge to coach students, some of whom had been his schoolmates just two years earlier.

After graduation, Taylor started substitute teaching at Marin Academy and, only a year later, he was approached about a full-time teaching position in the Math Department, with one surreal hurdle between him and the job: being interviewed for a teaching position by his own former teachers.

After a successful, if admittedly stressful, interview, Taylor's former teachers became his colleagues. He's taught everything from Algebra 2 and Statistics to Pre-Calculus at Marin Academy. Initially, Taylor felt his math career was something he simply stumbled into, and he was sure that someday he'd make the switch to science. Much to his surprise, he fell in love with teaching math.

Taylor's teaching style is influenced by his own time as an MA student. He values a combination of direct instruction and encouraging questions, with plenty of time for students to explore on their own.

He spends very little time standing at the front of the room talking at his students. "It's my job to help shepherd students to the correct understanding and pathways toward problem-solving. I'm interested in having students learn those problem-solving techniques," he says.

It makes sense that Taylor remains a constant presence at MA because, as a student, he was a quintessential MA kid. In addition to loving his Environmental Science and Oceanography classes, Taylor played bass and helped start an MA funk/soul band, was on the Cross Country and Track teams, and cherished his time spent on Wilderness Quests.

Taylor acknowledges that Marin Academy has changed a bit over time. Buildings have come and gone, or their use has changed. He may be a little nostalgic for the old computer labs, but he's a big fan of the new cafeteria. Through the changes, Taylor appreciates that the core values he remembers from his time at Marin Academy remain the same: quality student-teacher interaction and experiential learning.

Taylor now co-leads the Wilderness Quest program. He's proud of the questing ritual's recent evolutions and says it feels good to uphold a tradition that's been ongoing for 38 years while innovating and improving on its legacy format. He's equally enthusiastic about opportunities within the Math Department to integrate courses of study, creating a path for all students to reach Calculus as seniors when, in the past, not all students were eligible by 12th-grade. He knows some students will ultimately decide not to take Calculus, but the equity of opportunity and choice is what matters to Taylor.

Taylor's journey has been so full circle that he has now taught the high school-aged children of his own former teachers, Liz Gottlieb and Pilar Góngora, who were both pregnant while he was a student. And what about Track, the thing that brought him back to Marin Academy in 2007? Well, Taylor has coached 15 incredible seasons, and served as the Head Coach for five years before passing the baton to fellow Math Teacher and Penn Fellow, Anya Strum.