Math teacher Marcus Jamison realized he wanted to be a teacher during his junior year of college. “I wanted to become a teacher, one because I like building confidence in others,” Jamison said. “And, also, I just enjoy seeing kids learn, and seeing the ‘Aha’ moments.” This is Jamison’s second year of teaching full time, after teaching last year at Burnett Middle School in San Jose. His other teaching experiences include Homestead High School in Cupertino, Chaparral High School (at his alma mater), in Scottsdale, Arizona, and time teaching abroad in both Ecuador and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

When asked what students should know about him, Jamison said, “I travel, I scuba dive, I have a black belt in karate, I like to play basketball and sand volleyball. I listen to audio books and YouTube galore.”

According to Jamison, the thing he is most interested in teaching at Tam are long term projects. “I am excited to do in-depth projects in the classroom that make students think and kind of struggle for a little bit because I feel like it really makes math more rewarding.”

Jamison is teaching Geometry and Advanced Algebra. He decided to teach math because he tutored math throughout his time in college at Stanford. He found that, as a tutor, it was best to pick a specialty, and he chose math. “It was the one that I found the most enjoyment in,” Jamison said. “[It was] basically where a lot of [my] want and will to build confidence [in my students] came from.”