Latin School of Chicago

Stan Izen Stan Izen always knew he wanted to be a teacher. His own high school math teacher provided an excellent example. ���I had the same math teacher for three years in high school,��� Izen said. ���It always struck me that he really enjoyed his job. He wasn���t silly or jokey, and he didn���t carry on a lot, but he was calm and just seemed really happy. That seemed very appealing to me.��� Izen followed in his teacher���s footsteps and built a long career as a math teacher, known for his calm, quiet approach. He retired last spring after 30 years of teaching at Latin and is enjoying the first taste of freedom from the demands of the classroom. Izen arrived at Latin in 1981, by which time he���d already been teaching for 15 years. He was recruited by Warren Hawley, who was the Math Department chair. Izen and Hawley had taught together in the 1960s, and Hawley remembered Izen���s skill as a teacher. ���I met Stan in 1969 when I was a rookie, and he was already a respected teacher,��� said Hawley. ���He was widely acknowledged as an excellent teacher, and he was a great model for me.��� When there was an opening in the Latin Math Department, Hawley thought of his old friend and asked Izen to come in for a meeting. ���From my first visit to the school, there was a liveliness and an energy about the place that really appealed to me,��� Izen said. He found that to be true throughout his time at Latin. ���The students are very motivated, very hard working, friendly, talkative and really quite alive,��� he said. Izen taught middle school to start, then moved into teaching upper school students. ���I taught geometry a bit and wrote a geometry textbook we used for 10 years at Latin.��� He also taught AB and multivariable calculus. ���I particularly enjoyed the multivariable calculus because I taught it as a seminar course,��� he said. ���The students were largely responsible for the teaching. Each student was assigned a section, and they led the discussion in the class.��� Izen���s approach to teaching has earned accolades from Latin ��� he was awarded the 2012 Special Erasmus Recognition for intellectual passion and scholarship ��� and from his old friend Warren Hawley. ���I think teaching the way Stan teaches, one couldn���t go wrong. He���s a strong mathematician, and he really thinks about how to teach.��� Now, Izen is looking forward to doing something other than teaching. ���My retirement plans in no particular order, are: reading, writing, travel, movies, restaurants and walking the dog,��� he said. Any unstructured time is certainly well deserved. ���It was a long career and a lot of years,��� said Izen. n Stan Izen ���From my first visit to Latin, there was a liveliness, and an energy about the place that really appealed to me.��� LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO 17

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