“I have always enjoyed helping people understand math… I just like helping kids basically,’’ Avery Walker said. Walker is a new math teacher at Harrisonburg High School.

Walker has been working towards this career since his sophomore year of college when he decided to take education classes.  However, math was not always his favorite subject.

“…In sixth grade, I had a teacher that I hated, so I began to hate math all throughout middle school, ninth grade and tenth grade… then in eleventh grade I decided to take Algebra 2 and Geometry… and that’s when I really started liking math again.”

Walker says his true motivation for teaching someone a math equation in his Algebra 1 class sophomore year of high school. Sabrina Gerald

“My inspiration probably came when I taught someone a math equation and I got to see the look on their face of ‘oh I got this now’ that happened in high school in one of my Algebra 1 classes my sophomore year.”

Walker’s favorite memory from math class as a student is junior year in Algebra 2.

“…I was a lazy student…the entire second semester I chose not to do one of the homework assignments and I still ended up with one-hundred percent as my final grade!” Walker said.   

“The hardest part for me is wanting the students to understand and sometimes you just aren’t a right fit for them as a teacher so you just lose them…It’s what I’m most fearful of,” Walker said.

“If I could in future years I want to teach a statistics class.” Despite this, Walker would still choose the Algebra 2 and Geometry classes he teaches at HHS.