A cyclist, runner, and teacher, Ms. Heather Beiss is the newest addition to West High School’s Math Department this year.

  As a new member of West’s staff, Ms. Beiss began teaching Algebra 2 and High School Math 2. She previously taught in San Francisco and San Diego.

  Compared to some schools at which Ms. Beiss has taught, West High School is on the larger side. Though large groups of people might seem easy to get out of hand, Ms. Beiss said, “At West, the students are very respectful.”

  High school students often have similar struggles in math. Firstly, some students think math is not exciting. Secondly, they think math is too difficult.

  Ms. Beiss even said, “I didn’t like math as a student because I thought it was really boring.”

However, she eventually realized that math itself is not boring—with students’ attitudes and a bad reputation, it isn’t hard for math to seem repetitive. Therefore, Ms. Beiss strives to not only teach formulas, but also teach her students that math can be exciting.

  Always working in groups is one way Ms. Beiss captures the attention of her students. Instead of spending class time memorizing formulas, Ms. Beiss teaches her students the logic behind their creation; this adds another unexpected level to everyday lessons and makes the formulas easy to remember.

  The students are not the only ones who enjoy this day-to-day class time variety. Ms. Beiss enjoys teaching because, as she said, “Every day is different.” Unlike a computer programmer, which was her previous job, an instructor faces more frequent surprises.

  When she isn’t teaching, Ms. Beiss enjoys staying active, especially through biking. Once, she rode 63 miles from Huntington to Corona. In terms of entertainment, Ms. Beiss enjoys the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games, classic rock music, and comedy movies.

   Ms. Beiss’s most important teaching philosophy is that “anybody can be good at math as long as they try.” So don’t worry if you’re not getting 100% on every test; that just means you have more room to improve. With optimistic advice and fun class plans, Ms. Beiss looks forward to leading a class both engaging and creative.