Dianne Fahy ’92: Contagious Excitement for Math

By Julie D. Lillis

Every teacher aspires to ascending the twin peaks of versatility and excellence: versatility in adjusting to different kinds of students, and in teaching as many levels of a subject as possible; and excellence in reaching every student who shows up in the classroom. Most teachers spend their entire careers chasing these goals, and only some are fortunate enough to attain them. Dianne Fahy ‘92, still in her thirties, has already mastered them—and for that has been rewarded with the Akin Family Chair for teaching excellence.

Hired fresh out of Fordham University, where she had won a prestigious Presidential Scholarship, Dianne came to Hackley in 1996 to teach math in the Upper School. She was hired by Doug Clark, who had taught her AP Calculus AB and BC (“She was an A student,” he recalls), who says he knew she could teach “everything in the Upper School.” With a solid footing there, she went on to expand her teaching repertoire by teaching in the Middle School. As Diana Kaplan, Math Department Head, observes, “She can teach any level. She’s that very rare teacher. She can teach [grades] 5-12. I don’t think I can say that about any other teacher in the department.”

And Dianne is enthusiastic about what she does. Once at lunch some years ago, she waxed rhapsodic about a certain element of math—and soon the rest of us at the faculty table were engaged enthusiastically in talking about it, too. And the table was full of history and English teachers, not math teachers. She is that good at convincing others that they can “do math”—no matter their ages and backgrounds.

This gift translates in the classroom. A recent afternoon foray into a senior-level AP Calculus class was most instructive. Two boys beat her there, arriving early to get good seats, right in the center of the classroom. Dianne also came early. Conversing before class, she soon discovered that one hadn’t eaten lunch yet. She quickly remedied this problem with apple juice from her personal stash. The rest of the class streamed in, settling comfortably into the dark wooden chairs. Her manner was relaxed; these seniors didn’t need a tight grip on the reins—it was springtime, and they were nearly in college, after all. But still she was firmly in control of the conversation and the class. Always encouraging, she even corrected gently: when one student got an answer wrong, Dianne said with an easy smile, “I respectfully disagree.”

Dianne frequently used technology. A technology aficionado, she made good use of the SMART Board in her classroom and the Document Camera as well. The latter can project the calculator onto the wall, which is marvelous to watch, and she uses it to show student work so that students have the opportunity to learn from each other’s strategies and solutions. Dianne observes, “By seeing how other students literally write it up on the page, they see the math doesn't just come in the way I put it together, and that other ways of putting it together can be just as straight-forward and illuminating.”

All her Calculus students pay close attention at all times, just as the Middle School math class did. She answers, thoroughly, all questions—whether it be from seniors in Calculus or seventh graders in Math 7. She encourages the students, Middle Schoolers and seniors, praising those who answer correctly and gently correcting those who do not. “Please ask me questions,” she asks the seniors at one point. “You get better that way.” Her tone is upbeat, positive, and cheerful. “Now we’re cooking with gas,” she says to the Middle Schoolers. Group work, particularly for the Middle Schoolers, is encouraged—and she hops from table to table to help and encourage, brushing her long brown hair out of her face as she works. It is productive time well spent. She is warm and enthusiastic, even when reviewing for a test—and she has a “you-can-do-it” approach.

It is a long way from 1988 when Dianne arrived on campus as a ninth grader. She quickly made her mark as an “A” student, graduating from Hackley in 1992 at age 16, Cum Laude, and winning the Royal A. Clark award for service. The award is one of our most coveted, presented each year to the senior who “has demonstrated her loyalty through service in her years at Hackley”, as chosen by the entire Upper School faculty. Dianne was a clear choice, with her interest and involvement in Dial (as Editor-in-Chief), orchestra, Church lector, and lots of community service off campus. From here she sailed through Fordham, graduating with a major in Math and a minor in Psychology. But the lure of her alma mater proved a strong one, and she returned to the Hilltop to teach the subject she had always loved, Math. She was also a member of our boarding staff, a role she held for four years.

Dianne dreamed of teaching math when she was a student here. “When I was a student at Hackley I had always, especially in my senior year… [thought]…I could teach math. I think I could do it and … coach and live at Hackley…So I went to college and coming back and getting a job at Hackley right out of college was literally a dream come true that I had since I was 16. For five years I have [had] this dream and [it] comes true.”

This comment is not surprising to those of us who have known her for a long time, or for those of us who work with her. As a fourteen-year-old, Dianne was a sophomore in my Modern European History course. She sat front and center, earning straight “A’s,” always contributing insightful comments to each and every class discussion. She was a naturally brilliant student, and I was so pleased to see her return to the school where she had had so much success as a young person; one of the gifts of being a longtime faculty member is to see one’s young charges grow up and become the successful adults you knew they could be.

Her co-workers say that she returns the affection of the school that once nurtured her as a youngster. “Dianne is quite loyal to the school and she really strives to embody the values ‘United we help one another’ or ‘Enter here to be and find a friend,” says math colleague Oshon Temple. Furthermore, her love of Hackley is so strong that she “references Where the Seasons Tell Their Story,” the book about the history of Hackley written by the late Walter Schneller, says Oshon.

In 2001, Dianne left boarding to free up time to pursue her master’s in Math at Western Connecticut State College, receiving it in 2005—her thesis “concerned crocheted models of hyperbolic space” and its presentation was attended by several of her Middle School students. In that same year (2001), she began to teach one section of Middle School math—a decision that was a major turning point for her. “I like the team idea,” she says—which is vastly different from high school teaching. She moved to Middle School full time for the 2002-3 school year. “That was the year that I lived Middle School,” she recalls. Now she teaches mostly Middle School, save for one section of AP Calculus.

In addition to a full teaching load, she is also the Middle School Math Coordinator, supervising the math teachers in the Middle School, and coordinating the curriculum 5-8. It is a tremendous job, but she excels at it. As Coordinator, she is responsible for ensuring that new teachers have a support system under their wings—one teacher told me that he was immensely grateful for the three years of guidance she had provided to him, sharing with him her notes, her lesson plans, and her ear and advice. New teachers frequently sit in on her class, to see how an experienced teacher teaches, and send her copies of their tests for comments and suggestions. She is also responsible for creating the math curriculum, with the approval of the Math Department Head, Diana Kaplan. Right now they are also in the midst of creating a 5th and 6th grade diagnostic test for incoming families that will help identify areas of strengths and weaknesses, to better help new students. Dianne is creating it, with the supervision of her boss. This is part of her job, since she oversees placement.

As Diana Kaplan says, “She is a true leader down there”—not just in the math department but in the entire Middle School. And, continues Diana, “For me, the best part is that I don’t worry about the Middle School.”

Dianne constantly reinvents herself as a teacher. Technology is a prime example. This year she learned and mastered how to use the Document Camera, which she deftly describes as “cool” and a “great tool”; it allows the kids to see a calculator and its functions up on the SmartBoard at the front of the room.

She sets goals for herself at the beginning of the year, she says, and sometimes shares them with the students—and sometimes not, depending on what they are. “Every year in September I set an intention for the year, a different one, and it’s more for me than it is necessarily for them but it definitely comes through so one year it was ‘Have fun,’ the year that I taught 6th grade, when I taught 6th grade for the first time. This year it’s ‘Trusting serendipity’ which is really about when you’re in the class, like trusting that you’re going to get to what you need to get to; it doesn’t have to be in a linear line.”

But, she says, there are different goals for Middle School than for the Upper Schoolers. For example, she tells them, “I definitely want you to be able to take notes”. She also has firm expectations of behavior for both age groups--get to class on time, don’t chew gum, that sort of thing—and prints up a list of class “rules” which she gives out, much to the amusement of her Calculus seniors. I asked her if she remembered when I told her class that they looked like cows when they chewed gum, and she laughed her fabulously infectious laugh. “I bring a wastebasket,” she said tactfully.

Part and parcel of those goals are projects for the entire Middle School, like the Recipe Project, which Dianne created, or the famous Census Project, which she created in collaboration with Kevin Roth. Dianne, for her part, credits the conferences she attends, like the Milton Diversity Conference (2007): “The thing I most took from that is that if I want to enact change in this area I need to do it in the classroom.” On Census Day, the kids learn the difference between a count and a poll, incorporating art activities and “combining the math idea of the census with the history of it and exploring some of the tougher questions that the census can bring out”—like who counted as a person in 1790. The Recipe Project was somewhat similar: all students brought in a family-related recipe, but had to “do something mathematical” with it, as well as write about why it was important to them. “It was a nice diversity piece as well because it gave kids a chance to share about their family and the celebrations that maybe they have or the special occasions they celebrate or just some special tradition that they might have in their family.” Diversity is important to Dianne, her efforts in this area are recognized by others. Oshon Temple told me recently, “One of the things I appreciate about Dianne is her commitment to social justice.” This might translate into her interest in the history of math, that math wasn’t just “done by one group of people,” says Oshon, and “her passion for equity, her need for voices to be heard.”

She also, every year, does a Stock Market Project: the kids “pick three stocks and chart the progress of the stocks.” Different groups get a different amount of money (fake) to invest, and but the stocks are real. They use algebra to calculate the percent change while tracking their stocks’ progress, or lack thereof, further honing their math skills.

I had heard about her creativity and enthusiasm for math long before I visited her classes. I knew from the kids what a dynamo she was in class. Among the faculty, she is known as a very hard worker who, says Diana Kaplan, “preps the hell out of every lesson.” Always fully prepared, she is able to answer every question thrown at her by students—as she did in the classes I sat in on. “She is contagious with her excitement” about math, says her boss, Diana, and that contagion leads her students to do well. My own daughter is an example. Taking Calculus as a senior with Dianne, she did well on the AP exam, passed the Calculus AB (first-year college calculus) placement exam at her college with flying colors—and as a studio art/history major, chose to take Calculus BC (second-year college calculus) in her freshman year. And what was her favorite course that term? Not art, although she liked it. You guessed it: Calculus BC.

If Dianne can do that for someone who is not a math major, imagine what she can do for someone who is. And that is another one of her gifts: the ability to reach anyone in the classroom and lift him or her up to achieve the best. As Diana Kaplan said to me recently, “She [reaches] every kid in the room, from the bottom to the top.” In an age of differentiated education, Dianne has already figured out how to do it right.

Her students say she strongly affects them both in and out of the classroom. She can reach seniors and seventh graders, as my foray into her world proved. She is, says senior Peter Niemczyk, “Hip enough to hold a great conversation with her students and serious enough to hold her students’ attention.”

Jed Dioguardi ‘14, now in the Upper School, was an 8th grader in her Algebra 1 class. “She was really involved,” he said enthusiastically one afternoon. “She was always willing to offer help,” remembering that Dianne made herself available often for extra help—another trademark of her teaching style. “She’s very organized,” he recalled, adding, “She’s very energetic.” Furthermore, she does problems on the board with kids, and “she would walk us through them.”

But that was not his only contact with Dianne. She was the person who introduced him to running, his passion now. She coached him in track and cross-country for two years, a job she picked up a few years into her tenure at Hackley. “I think she was a great coach,” he says. “She really figures out where you are as an athlete and then works with you to help you improve a lot.” Now that he is in the Upper School as a sophomore, he is on the varsity cross country team, the winter track team, and the spring track team (also varsity)—and he credits Dianne for introducing him to running. He hadn’t ever run before—“no athletics prior,” as he says. “She kind of eased you into it, because she knew that a lot of people coming into seventh grade weren’t going to be on top of their game.” She ran with the kids, which she still does, to show them that they can do it. She feels that this is important to do as a coach. “I think it does a lot for them when you run with them.” As Dianne says with a sparkle in her eyes and her trademark broad smile, which is positively infectious, “I love coaching.”

As to her personal life, Dianne has been married for three years to John Fahy, a charming and witty man who lives with her on campus. She has many interests: art museums (she indulges herself often in the city, both Manhattan and Brooklyn), math history and history in general (she loves the Ellis Island Museum), yoga, and baking (you haven’t lived till you’ve eaten her Irish Soda Bread!). Like so many bright people, she has many passions that extend inside and beyond the walls of the classroom. As Assistant Director of the Middle School Kevin Roth observed, “Her passion and desire to be excellent at [teaching math] and her knowledge are the two things that really stand out to me as Dianne the teacher.”