Patrick Mooney

Math teacher Patrick Mooney professionally and personally looks up to his middle school math teacher, Susan Guengerich. She’s influenced the way he teaches, treats others and is his inspiration for the role he aspires to have in his students’ lives.

“How [Guengerich] presented mathematics influenced my teaching. There was an energy there, and she always really loved to be present in mathematics and help us understand it in ways that we weren’t always expecting to learn. Her teaching style was such that she wanted to reach kids. And yes, she taught middle school, but she always wanted to meet them where they were academically, and I think that that’s translated to my teaching,” Mooney said.

Mooney uses aspects of Guengerich’s teaching in his classroom, from lesson plans to holiday traditions.

“Ms. G had a very distinct teaching style, and I’ve borrowed a number of her teaching techniques and some of her mnemonics and things that she’s done. I think the energy that I try to enter my classroom with is something I picked up from her,” Mooney said. “A tradition that I started here, showing the video “Donald In Mathmagic Land” every holiday season, started with Miss G.”

When Guengerich found out that Mooney was opting to take regular instead of advanced math his seventh-grade year, she encouraged him to move up the following year.

“I was taking math from a different person at that point, and she was teaching the advanced class; she knew that I was misplaced and made sure that I was in a place where I would be challenged and I’d be learning,” Mooney said. “[She showed me how to] be the person you want the kids to see in your classroom and always be yourself. It seems like the simplest things, the Golden Rule, do unto others as you want to be treated like just be a good person, and people would be good.”

Guengerich passed away from congestive heart failure during Mooney’s first year of teaching, 19 years ago. He makes sure to honor her in his teaching through traditions such as “Donald In Mathmagic Land” and reflect on her impact on his life.

“I’m grateful that she was a part of my life and that I got to learn from her. One of the last things she sent me was lesson plans on problem-solving. I got that information from her a month before she died. So she knew I was becoming a teacher, and she wanted me to be successful. The way I honor her and celebrate her traditions is by doing them in my own teaching. Now I need to actually follow through and make sure that I’m doing what she would have wanted me to do,” Mooney said.