John Banderob – 50th Reunion Essay

John Banderob

22 Frog Pond Road

Sandwich, NH 03227

johnbanderob@gmail.com

617-694-5828

Spouse(s): Meredith Malo (1969-1979), Erica Domar Banderob (1980)

Child(ren): Jessica Malo Banderob (1975), Rachel Domar Banderob (1983)

Career: Secondary School Math teacher (1969 – 2016)

Avocations: Reading, hiking, cooking, photography

College: Ezra Stiles

I’m writing this on April 27, 2018, continuing the largely unchanged pattern of deadline-fueled composing that those who knew me 50 years ago might remember.

We retired to New Hampshire almost two years ago after my 47 years of teaching middle and high school math at four different private schools, the last 42 of those years at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. There I met, in 1978, and, in 1980, married my second (and last) wife, Erica Domar Banderob, who was also a Milton math teacher. We spent the last 24 of those years living in and eventually heading a girls’ dormitory, the part of the job that we miss most. (The parts I miss least are grading papers and writing reports.) We are still in touch with many former students and especially with those who lived in our dorm for three or four years, many of whom have gone on to make real differences in the lives of those around them and/or on an even wider stage.

Although I didn’t recognize it until later, my battle with depression began in my time at Yale and continues, although mild medication has reduced the battle to briefer skirmishes. Unfortunately, I seem to have unwittingly and unwillingly bequeathed this plague to both of my daughters, a fact which brings me even greater sorrow.

Retirement is affording us time for hiking, reading, cooking, traveling and some political engagement as well as spending time with friends and our daughters. The current political and ethical climate is incredibly troubling to me, as our country seems to be turning from its core values and embracing hatred and rejecting even the most basic empathy and social responsibility. In the words of The Record’s “A Day in the Life” parody, “I read the news today, OH GOD.” Perhaps by the time this is published, things will look at least a little brighter. I certainly hope so.

I learned many lessons from a career in the classroom, more important lessons than the mathematics that I taught. I learned over and over the importance of recognizing the struggles that others are facing and making allowances for them. The importance of integrity in matters both academic and personal was an essential part of teaching for me, and I often read to my classes (citing the source, of course) from the first page of the packet which awaited each of us the day we arrived at Yale stating that integrity as the core value of any academic (only academic? I think not.) institution. I strived to make this lesson, reinforced and clarified at Yale in 1965, the central value in my classroom.