By Mia Fatuzzo ’15, News Section Editor

At first, Mr. John Christiansen wasn’t sure he wanted to be a teacher. After graduating college in 1998, Mr. Christiansen found himself torn between his desires to teach high school, coach sports at a competitive level, or work in communications and public relations. He worked at his high school alma mater, The Tilton School, as a history teacher, a football and baseball coach, and the communications director for a year before moving to Chicago to be with his now-wife, Laura Christiansen. There, he worked as a communications officer for an insurance company. However, he missed interacting with students and watching them learn and grow. In 2001, he decided, once again, to pursue teaching. This time, however, Mr. Christiansen chose to go into mathematics. He enjoys how teaching meshes with his relaxed, mellow personality.

Mr. Christiansen previously worked at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts where, aside from teaching mathematics, he was the head baseball coach and an assistant football coach. For the last three years, he lived with his family in a dormitory along with sixty high school girls. He notes that working at a boarding school was a rigorous job: “At boarding school, you do everything from coaching to teaching to counseling to just listening to kids talk. There would be times where I would get a knock on my door at one-thirty in the morning.”

Mr. Christiansen is most impressed with the students at Country Day. When he visited our school last year, he made sure to wander the halls, from the downstairs hallway to the library, and ask students about their experiences at Country Day. He wanted to make sure that it was a school that agreed with his beliefs: “It’s important to work on development on students… Not just on students but on all aspects of life.” He was also impressed by the faculty and by recommendations from people who had worked at competing schools.

His favorite part about Country Day so far is the kindness displayed by the Country Day community. He points out that the hardest part for a new teacher is the lack of institutional memory – every face in the hallway is brand new. Everyone he’s encountered has been genuinely nice and helpful, and understood that he’s still learning everyone’s names.

Mr. Christiansen’s preferred aspect of teaching math is the concept’s inherent challenge.  He admits that there are plenty of students who claim to hate or struggle with math. He relishes working with students to develop learning skills, techniques, or different ways of going about things to allow them to become solid students of mathematics. He wants them to understand that math might not be easy, but it will be rewarding. Put simply, Mr. Christiansen is interested in listening, learning, and figuring things out. He’s excited to learn more about teaching at Country Day, and about the community as a whole.