We all called Mr. Time Price a “saint”. That is, until our politically minded principal discouraged us, offering a bevy of less controversial adjectives as description, like magnanimous or altruistic. I tasted each one these options, rolling them around in my mouth as I ate one his homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. None seemed quite strong enough to express just how kind Mr. Price is.

Most kids like Mr. Price for his cookies. Vegan oatmeal chocolate chip were his specialty. Every quarter, he promises us some delicious baked good. It was not just the promise of sweets that touched all of us. It was comforting to imagine Mr. Price looking through his dogged-ear cookbook and pulling out flour and baking soda, thinking “My precalculus class would love these!”

Mr. Price always thinks about his students and trying to connect with them. He shares pictures from his weekend hikes on Monday morning, and, in turn asks about ours. Mr. Price’s desire to get to know students outside of class made him such an amazing teacher.

I have always struggled in math. Like other teenage girls who liked to experiment with no bake cookies and debate the merits of various supermodels, math was one of my least favorite activities. I admired the few students who were generally thrilled to see a trigonometric proof or the unit circle. But math made me feel inadequate, as I could never quite grasp the concepts as quickly as others. I gave up on math, only going through the motions of working out problems while my mind wandered to happier places. I felt like a failure in the math classroom.

Mr. Price changed that. How could I not care about what this teacher had to say about cosine and tangent when he was so willingly listening to stories from my life and to share stories from his? I cared about the class because I cared about Mr. Price.
Mr. Price also had unintimidating classroom. The walls were covered in amazing posters of space (a passion of Mr. Price’s). A grumpy Chinchilla named Max sat in the back of the room in his cage, who Tim sometimes allowed to scamper about the room every other Monday. The comfortable space was improved by Tim’s open attitude and consistent willingness to go over concepts again and again.

From meeting me at lunch periods to remembering details about things I had told him weeks ago, Mr. Price impressed my classmates and me with his devotion to have relationships. He incited a genuine interest in math for many of us, including me. Though math is still not my passion, it is so much more bearable with Mr. Price and his vegan cookies!