Selfless Schneider

Obviously Schneider has been anything a teacher could ever hope to be. He has taught with such conviction, you cannot help but understand, and even with minimal studying, his preparation left me with everything I needed for the AP test. His class was organized, fun, and easy to manage. Throughout the year, he assured us that all he wanted each night was 30 to 45 minutes of our best work, and I’ll be darned, he is the first teacher who has ever so accurately measured exactly how long his assignments will take. There was never a night I was working for 3 hours, and there was never a time I had been too overwhelmed due to his class.

I feel plenty ready for my future in mathematics, and it is because of this man’s skills in the classroom, but math is just one of the ways he has impacted me.

The first one-on-one encounter I remember with Mr. Schneider was one of the first weeks of school. I walked up to the key to check my work and he reached out to me, asking what I wanted to do in college. When I told him I wanted to double major in economics and math, he did something no one has ever done. He talked to me about it. Not about my goals, my plans, but the subject itself. He and I shared a conversation about diminishing marginal utility. As insignificant as it may have been, that conversation has stuck with me, and it almost validated me as the economist I hope to become. Thanks to Mr. Schneider taking an actual interest in what I love, I feel confident pursuing my future with little apprehension.

What Schneider gave me is more than calculus or statistics. After all, he doesn’t just teach math. He teaches kids.