Sitting Down With Kurt Speidel

By Annie Bubinski

Math teacher, Kurt Speidel, will be retiring this year after 39 years of teaching students the wonders of The Calculus and algebra. Throughout the years, Speidel has perfected the art of calculus and influenced students to pursue careers in quality majors, such as math and English. And although he’s about to leave, we will always remember the afternoons spent in 401 receiving help from both Speidel and his pal Louis learning to “crank the derivs.”

Q: When did you decide that you wanted to be a teacher?
A: Probably when I was ten years old I decided I wanted to teach. But I decided on math because I was pretty good at it in high school. I also liked biology, which I thought about minoring in, but I didn’t want to take chemistry. So I ended up with a heavy major in math.

Q: How did you get to know your fellow Calculus teacher, Mr. Degen?
A: I went to college for my crudential at Long Beach State where Mrs. Daralee Klein and Degen were also attending. Mrs. Klein was a previous math teacher at Dana and we were all in a math class together and got to know each other through that class.

Q: How did you get involved with Lighting and Sound?
A: At the first school I taught, Whittier, there was a Drama teacher who didn’t know much about Lighting and Sound so I began working on that there. It became my thing and I’m sort of a perfectionist when it comes to Lighting and Sound. It bothers me when things aren’t done correctly. Lighting and Sound got crazier and crazier every year. When you do Air Guitar you get to know people really well. I remember one Air Guitar where I had everybody redo this one scene on Janet Jackson over and over and we spent about seven hours on just that one act. But it came out really well. I got a lot of my ideas for Lighting and Sound by talking to people who run shows and going to concerts. The coolest thing is PRG renting lights to us because it’s not normal for them to work for high schools. A lot of their clients are famous.

Q: How did you begin your teaching career?
A:My first teaching job was in Whittier in the fall of 1971 at South Whittier Intermediate School. The principal told me years later that he hired me because he liked my tie. I taught there five years, but I really wanted to teach high school even though I still liked middle school. I have taught algebra from the very beginning. My mentor was my high school Algebra 1 teacher Miss Sauer and I patterned a lot of my teaching styles after her. Even to this day, we send a photo of each of my math classes to Miss Sauer and she’s 91 years old. Later I taught at Currie Middle School in Tustin for two years with a great bunch of teachers and another drama teacher who needed help with Lighting and Sound. But the enrollment at Currie started to decline and I was the youngest teacher there so I was laid off in my second year. So I had left my job in Whittier where I could have had a job forever and took a chance and got burned. By then Dana had an opening for a math teacher and Degen and Klein were already here. I taught Algebra 1, Intro Algebra (which is like Algebra 1A), and only one year of Geometry. Before long I was teaching Algebra 2 and Math Analysis. I’ve never had a Geometry class since; I like algebra better.

Q: When did you begin teaching calculus?
A:In my seventh year I started teaching calculus and continued for the next 24 years. My first year of calculus I was here until eight or nine every night prepping all of the lessons and doing all of the homework. I don’t “wing” anything. Seven years ago I began teaching BC Calculus after a group of students approached me and persuaded me to do it. That was a really hard year, and I decided then that I didn’t have to make 40 years because of that one difficult year. BC does not have easy preps, but to teach the top kids, you have to teach the hard classes. Some of my best memories would be teaching math to some really cool kids. My main goal right now is to get out of here in one piece and to not have to grade papers or deal with kids with cell phones.

Q:How many sick days have you accumulated throughout your career?
A: I have built up 381 sick days, which is about two school years. I’ve missed nine days in 39 years.

Q: Can you please describe some of your plans after you retire? A:I plan on traveling the world. When I reached 199 days to go in my career Jillian Burns gave me a really neat travel book. It’s pretty cool that students have commemorated every 100 days of my countdown starting with 1,000. I appreciate that a lot. I’d really like to catch up to some of the places my brother has been too.

Q: How would you like to see Mr. Degen continue your legacy of The Calculus?
A:Degen will be in this room next year; he should have been here in the first place. This room is awesome. I, of course, wish him good luck. I’m thankful for him, because he’s one of the reasons I got a job here.

Q:How have you influenced your student’s lives?
A:I’ve always thought of my job as more than just teaching math. My past students Ryan Robinett and Marc Meinecke told me, ‘You don’t just teach math, you teach life.’ They used to call me coach which is kind of funny because I’m not a coach. But to me, that’s one of the best comments you can get.