Puns, Brackets, and so Much More: Mister Treller.

By Alexandre I.

It is 1:15 on a Thursday, and I am in the basement of Wesley Hall, in the small room adjoined to the locker-room. This room is non-notable. There are three tables, placed sporadically against walls, a few chairs, and a billboard with posters and announcements, and curiously, comic-strips. Mister Treller has just shown me a few comics he has put up that he calls “bad ones”. One of the especially “bad” ones today is of an armed robber robbing a gun store with the store owner staring condescendingly, the caption reading: “Just how stupid are you?” Though now he puts up new jokes everyday for purposes of entertainment, they used to a much more insidious purpose:

“I put up new jokes everyday originally so people would read the notices on the notice board, then after a while I was forced to put them up everyday because people would say ’where’s the new jokes?”

Mister Treller’s use of humor isn’t only limited to the comic strips he puts up on notice- boards and doors, however, as anyone who’s taken a class with him or sat in the tutor room for five minutes knows, it is integral to his teaching style.

He often tells stories of wild parties he and his grandsons have, staying up till eight fifteen watching Disney movies and drinking root beer, all on a school night. In fact, he just told this story this to a student who’s come for math help in the tutor room. This is where I am now at five past two. Mister Treller not only teaches Math, but acts as the school’s tutor: a teacher any student can come to see with whatever may be troubling them. It’s in this room that I see friends joke and pass lines off each-other as Mister Treller teaches about logs, cosines, and asymptotes, while two friends speak in Cantonese, and someone struggles with a physics problem on a computer.

He tells jokes and funny stories to students because, as he says, “you’re forced to listen to something funny, forced to listen to listen to the math” It’s also a way for him to “break the ice”, form a rapport, and a level of familiarity with students. This is why last year he began learning Mandarin, since he often has many international students come through the tutor room, to eat, to study, to practice English. He learned Mandarin not only to be able to poke fun at students in their own language, but also, because as he says:

“I teach math, now if I have student from another country, he’s teaching me his language, I’m the student, he’s the teacher, and he’s forced to interact with me...you’re making an effort to learn their language, and they’re very appreciative of that.”

And the results show. As one international student from Hong Kong says, there is a “very good atmosphere” in the tutor room.

And even outside the hallowed halls of the tutor room, his student-orient teaching ethic continues. It’s not only a level of familiarity and the elimination of the often awkward interactions a student has with their teacher, but a very incremental process that’s as simple and practical as possible. As one former Pre-Calculus 30S student says, “he focuses on building fundamentals before bigger roles.” It comes down to making a comfortable atmosphere where a student can learn extremely complex concepts as easily as possible.

“Pressure is force per unit area.” A student asks. “Should be.” Replies Mister Treller just as he presses on “print”, to print some more comics. It’s 2:33. And just as I prepare to leave Mister Treller’s office, friends are talking over a biology assignment, the pressure applied by a skier’s skis is being calculated, and friends continue to speak in Cantonese, this time, about people’s heights. What I leave with, is a genuine satisfaction. I am immensely glad to be taking classes with a teacher so focused on actually teaching and interacting with his students on a personal level. His comics are an added bonus.