Paul Machemer '65

Math Department
Joined George School 1969-71; 1973


“Many schools provide a wonderful academic education. Some claim to toughen adolescents into adulthood. At George School, we educate students and provide plenty of tough challenges, but we also encourage them to grow toward the light. And frequently they blossom.”



How do you approach teaching?

Almost every class contains its “a-ha!” moments—a string of pearls connected into one uninterrupted search for understanding and perhaps wisdom. Perhaps a better analogy for a mathematician, the moments are like points on a line, each distinct with a length of zero, that combine to form a continuous line without end.

An outside observer might call my teaching method Socratic, probably too grand a description of what I do.

I ask questions. Students respond. I frequently then ask, “Why do you think that?” and listen to the student articulate his or her thoughts. I wait. Use the silence. “Are you sure?” I hope to ask questions that are just a bit more challenging than the students can answer quickly and then progress to questions that all will find quite difficult.

Although I know where I want to start the class, it is the students who define its specific content each day. Every class is an original. By developing the confidence to try the unknown, to risk failure, our graduates usually emerge ready to take on the world—in a consensus-building fashion!


More about Paul:

Paul coaches varsity soccer, helps with the golf team, and is an avid reader, primarily of British literature and history. He received a BA from Amherst College and an EdM from Harvard University.