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Teacher Looks Beyond the Numbers

Her students at Hunter High leave with a love for math

By Linnea Covington

Math teacher Eliza Kuberska’s intro to her job was serendipitous. After getting her master’s degree at New York University in 2001, she had already obtained a position at another school but decided to interview at Hunter College High School anyway. She spoke with David Hankin and described the connection she felt as, “I almost heard music and I realized I found my guru and he was going to teach me.” And now, she does the same for others.

“Ms. Kuberska has taught me so much and her bubbly, enthusiastic personality is absolutely contagious,” said Marianna Zhang, a freshman in the extended honors math class. “She is not afraid of spontaneity, and, most importantly, she makes a personal connection with every student by walking around the room and looking at us straight in the eye.”

Teaching mathematics isn’t an easy feat, but having a real love for the subject helps. Kuberska, 35, has always had a math-oriented mind and, she said, as a child her family often discussed the subject. Born in Poland to a chemist father and a literature-loving mother, Kuberska said she caught on to math from a very young age. And when the family moved to New York when she was 17, it helped her communicate.

“Coming here with a linguistic barrier, I was able to use math as my language, which I could communicate more easily through than English,” she said from her New Jersey home.

In college, Kuberska fell in love with physics and, as her studies continued, she considered going into math finance. Then 9/11 happened and that career didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, she decided to try teaching and has never looked back.

“I feel like my work at Hunter is one of the greatest gifts someone could give me,” she said. “The kids feel like part of my family, and I think they know that I like them and they respond to that.”

Based on the number of comments her students made about her teaching skills, her assessment isn’t far off.

One student nominating her for a Blackboard Award wrote, “You can’t dislike this woman. She has a great sense of humor, never failing to energize the deadest, sleep-deprived class, and she’s always glad to help students that are struggling.”

Jessie Frank, who was in her 9th-grade math class, added, “She pushed me harder than any teacher I’ve ever had, but I could only appreciate it and love her more, because it was so undoubtedly evident she had our best interest at heart. She made me want to do well in her class, and her contagious passion for math made me love the subject as well.”

Part of Kuberska’s success is due to her outlook on teaching the subject. She explained that many of her kids had never really learned to study math in middle school. So when they get to high school suddenly the work is much harder, which makes them think they are bad at it.

“A colleague of mine said 80 percent of the teaching is made up of psychology and the other 20 percent is actual math, and that is absolutely correct,” she said.

For her, personally, she hopes to learn with the kids and improve her own “growth curve.” And one day before she dies, she said she wants to understand the general theory of relativity. If she teaches herself as well as these kids, there is no doubt she will get it.

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Eliza Kuberska
Hunter College
High School
71 E. 94th St.