Math teacher Nick Pero strides into class and takes a deep breath.

“Guys, I’m really sorry,” Pero says, in a solemn tone.

The students shift in their seats and a hushed tone falls over the class. Pero leans against a desk, takes a sip of coffee and says in a guilty tone, “I forgot to bring the Doritos.”

The class groans, and he throws up his hands apologetically.

“They’re right by the door of my apartment, I promise!”

As the freshman geometry class continued, Pero walked with a springy step, gesturing wildly as he explained what it was like for people in ancient times when Pythagoras first discovered the concept of irrational numbers.

“Crazy hippie dude proclaims he has found a new set of numbers,” Pero said in his description.

Junior Drew Friedler, who had Pero for sophomore Advanced Algebra II and Trig, said this is typical for Pero’s classes.

“A lot of people don’t like math because they think it’s just kind of a dry subject,” Friedler said. “But I think Mr. Pero does a really good job of teaching the creative side to math, and I think that is the most exciting part of it.”

Along with his standard freshman Geometry class and two sections of Advanced Algebra II and Trig, Pero also teaches a section of BC Calculus.

Pero is a graduate of University of Rochester and holds a masters degree in math education from Cornell University.

According to Pero, he brings the same philosophy to each of his classes.

“If I can get a student to lose apathy, to feel excited about the content of learning, to go home and actually think about that stuff, then that’s all I want,” Pero said.

Sophomore Gillian Orlando-Milbauer, who is in Pero’s geometry class, said the excitement did come across.

“It was my favorite class,” Orlando-Milbauer said. “He’d be able to talk to us and be able to get us back on track and make us want to be able to be interested in what we were learning.”

As a student who had not enjoyed math before, Orlando-Milbauer found Pero’s class to be a guiding mathematical influence.

“I’ve never been really good at math, and then I was really good at math in his class,” Orlando-Milbauer said. “And that made me enjoy doing math a lot more.”

The students in Pero’s class leaned forward, eagerly engaging with him while he broke down a concept on the board. He then looked at the work students had already completed.

“I’m seeing lots of right answers, guys,” Pero said. “This is awesome!”

Math teacher Tamara Jenkins, who shares a classroom with Pero, regularly watches him teach. She believes that the environment Pero creates allows students to succeed.

“If he has students that are really strong in math, he really wants to push them to their utmost,” Jenkins said. “But then, for kids that maybe don’t have confidence in math, he wants to make a comfortable and safe environment for them.”

Friedler said this is true for his class.

“I think he’s effective in that he lets students take control of their own learning. If a student isn’t exactly enthusiastic in the subject, he’ll do what he can to help them,” Friedler said. “But he won’t hold their hands. In that way, he presents a challenge in class. It made me determined to do well in his class and I think it really encouraged a lot of people to do the same.”

As Pero walked around the classroom, a student called out to him.

“Mr. Pero, be honest, do you have any gum?”

“No!” Pero said, smiling as he crossed over to a student with his hand raised.

Pero said his enthusiasm for teaching comes from a true love of math as its own body of knowledge.

“I really enjoy working with students and helping them gain that enthusiasm I have,” Pero said. “Once I realized that that was my passion, I decided to pursue that master’s degree. I’m really happy. I feel very lucky to have made the choices I made. I like where I’m at right now.”

Later, Pero launched into a monologue about Pythagoras’ followers, the Pythagoreans, and their cult-like nature. The class simply nods silently, watching and listening, and occasionally interjecting with their own opinions.

Pero said he has pondered teaching at a collegiate or higher level, but he finds himself drawn to the high school atmosphere.

“I like the fact that students in this age group—14, 18 year olds—they’re excited about learning, and they don’t know a lot, just because of their age,” Pero said. “You don’t know a lot of, in my realm, math. And it’s nice for me to impart things that I find fascinating to this day to someone who’s studying math.”

As Pero concluded his lesson, he darted around the classroom, stopping to make jokes. As he ran to the front of the room, he stood at attention, and with a grin, he summarized his lesson.

“Irrational numbers are,” Pero said, “really, really funky.”

Juliana Kaplan can be contacted at [email protected].