KIRPES WITH A MATHEMATICAL PURPOSE
BY ZAIRA AHMAD & ANNA SONG
Friday
i = Monday
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hen walking into James Kirpes’ room, one may encounter “party,” “shindig,” “homefun” and “cal-COOL-us” filling class discussions. These are just a few of the phrases from Kirpology, Kirpes’ very own math language. While unusual to typical students, many enrolled in Kirpes’ classes are accustomed to his unique language. Kirpology plays a special role in his classroom, and the origin of the language dates back to the beginning of his teaching career. While attending math competitions during his first years of teaching and coaching math club, Kirpes met Des Moines Valley math teacher Jim Jephson, who inspired Kirpes’ “parties.” “We were chatting once and I heard him say ‘I don’t give math exams, I give math parties,’ because he likes to celebrate math and celebrate his students, and he thoroughly enjoys math,” Kirpes said. “I was like, ‘I like that idea: [to] celebrate math.’” To keep his terms consistent, Kirpes also swapped “quizzes” for “shindigs” and “homework” for “homefun.” He uses these alternative phrases to reduce students’ stress. “I’m very aware some students have math anxiety. As soon as they hear ‘math test,’ they tense up, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s a reality. So I thought, ‘What can I do to take the edge off? Call it a math party?’ [Because] why get a kid all tense or nervous over the term that I use?” Humor remains an integral part of Kirpes’ lessons as he often jokes with his students. One of
14 PROFILE
JAN. 19, 2024
Math teacher James Kirpes shares his journey to West and how his experiences have shaped his 32 years of teaching.
Kirpes’ former students and current West science teacher Jeff Conner ’05 appreciates his humor and believes it’s one of the reasons Kirpes stands out. “As somebody who was nerdy myself, growing up as a math nerd and a science nerd, I tended to think he was really funny and witty,” Conner said. “I enjoyed his sense of humor, and I enjoyed how much he loved math.” Despite Kirpes’s current passion for teaching, he never believed he would become a math teacher in high school. “I had an interaction with one of my friends in high school where I was trying to explain a topic to them, and apparently I did a very poor job, because my friend said, ‘You can’t teach anything.’ So I crossed ‘math teacher’ off in my brain,” Kirpes said. However, while studying mathematics and sociology at Iowa State University in 1986, Kirpes was on the hunt for a job. He began tutoring at the university tutoring office, discovering his love for teaching in the process. “I was pretty good at [tutoring], and I certainly enjoyed it,” Kirpes said. “I had some students who requested me from one semester to the next, so that told me I was doing okay … and junior year at Iowa State, I was like, ‘I really need to consider this math teacher thing.’” Now, Kirpes has been at West for 26 years, teaching about 4000 students throughout his career. His courses vary from Geometry Honors to AP Calculus BC to Art of Mathematical Prob-
lem Solving. For Kirpes, teaching isn’t a job but an avocation. “A vocation is something that you’re called to do, and for me, an avocation is the next step beyond that. I need to [teach math] to be my authentic self,” Kirpes said. “So not only am I called to do it, but I would be denying some sense of who I am if I didn’t.” Answering his calling to teach, Kirpes strives to help students derive their own equations to success. “I want students to be successful, and I try really hard to let them define what success is. It’s really important to me that you don’t let somebody else define for you what success is. [It’s] a great thing when I see a student having success, defined in their own way,” Kirpes said. Conner experienced Kirpes’ passion for teaching firsthand. After taking Geometry Honors, the Art of Mathematical Problem Solving I and II and AP Calculus BC with him, Connor notes Kirpes’ exponential mathematical purpose. “He loves math, he wants to spread it around to as many people as possible and he’s a teacher for the right reasons — he wants to educate young people about the topic that he loves. That’s why he does it,” Conner said. In addition to spreading his joy for math, Kirpes values students’ energy and desire to learn. “I find it very refreshing that students are better at self-advocating, and I love the fact that I can do a ‘check-