Beyond Mathematics and the Microphone: Mr. Rubinstein

Name: Gary Rubinstein

Subject: Mathematics

What subject do you teach? Why did you choose to teach it?

I teach math. I’ve always liked math and I also enjoy trying to make math interesting for other people.

Why did you choose to teach at Stuyvesant? What do you like (or not like) to teach here?

I taught at some other schools before I taught at Stuy, and I found that teaching is hard to do no matter where you are. I wanted to teach harder math so I would also benefit from it. I would actually like to be challenged sometimes to learn new things to teach the students, so that way it wasn’t just teaching what I already know—I would [also] get to learn. So I was a little selfish in that way. It wasn’t enough that I liked teaching; I needed to also learn—that’s one of the benefits of teaching.

Can you tell us a little more about your younger years? Where did you grow up? What did you love to do as a child?

I grew up in Long Island. I liked to play the trumpet a lot. I was in the band (that was the main thing I did), but I was also good at math; I won some kind of math award in school. I liked to play old-school Atari games. Video games were invented when I was about 10. And I liked doing Rubik’s Cubes, because it was just invented back then when I was a kid.

Did you always live in New York? What other places have you lived in/been to before?

I lived in Houston, Texas, for four years. Then I lived in Denver, Colorado, for six years, and I went to college in Boston for four years. So I was in New York from birth until I was 17, and then I returned to New York to live when I was about 30.

Did you always want to be a teacher? If not, what did you want to be beforehand?

I thought I wanted to be a lawyer when I was growing up, because I thought I wanted to make a lot of money. I thought I’d be good at it, but as I got closer and closer to the end of college, I knew that I didn’t really want to be a lawyer. In college, I studied math and philosophy. Afterwards, I went to this program called “Teach for America,” which trained me over the summer because I didn’t have any training, and they set me up with my own class in Houston just a couple of months after graduating. It was only supposed to be two years of teaching. But after four years of teaching, I quit and got a degree in computer science and did that for a few years, but then I didn’t like that either. So I went back to teaching.

What challenges have you faced being a teacher, especially after so many years of teaching? Do you think that Stuyvesant students have changed over the course of your teaching career?

So with phones and YouTube and all, people’s attention spans are not as good as they used to be. So I find it’s a little bit harder to do anything that students find special or interesting, because they get to see so much on their phones. Not that we didn’t watch TV back in the day, but I feel like it’s a little harder. For students, it takes a little more energy on my part. Although it could just be that I’m getting old. 

What is the most rewarding part of your job? 

Well sometimes, students appreciate you a lot, and then you get people thanking you. Recently, I posted this video of a song I sang at the talent show. So I posted it on my own personal Facebook page, and some of the people that commented first were students that I taught 35 years ago, who I’m friends with on Facebook. People said stuff like, “This guy was the best teacher ever,” you know? So it’s pretty rewarding to hear that. You just do your best job each day. You don’t think of it like, “Oh, I’m trying to be the best teacher these kids ever had.” You just try to be true to yourself, and some people really appreciate that. So it is nice to get that kind of recognition. Last year, I was also voted for the graduation speaker by the senior class. 

If you weren’t a teacher, what do you think you would be?

I was okay at computers, but I quit. I didn’t like that I wasn’t that good at it. I think if I stuck with computers, I would have pretty quickly become a manager: I’m not expected to be the best, but I can manage people who are better. I don’t know if I would have liked that so much, but that’s what I probably would have been doing. Alternatively, if I could choose what I could do, I would write. I wrote a book of essays about my life, mostly about my childhood, about my family, or about being a hypochondriac (someone who excessively worries about their health). All the essays are about my life, but some are just stories, and some are just about random topics.

Do you have any funny anecdotes from your years in the classroom, either as a student or teacher?

I do remember I was teaching at a new school and on the first day, I was trying to be all serious and trying to establish that I was a teacher that meant business. The bell rang and a kid came in and he was handcuffed to a girl. Someone brought handcuffs in as a joke, and they were handcuffed together. They were like “Mister, she’s not in this class, but I am, and we’re handcuffed together.” They were trying to prank me.

If you could teach any other subject besides math, what would it be and why?

Well, I have taught computers, so that’s one. And I liked teaching it. And otherwise, I guess I would like to teach film, like analyzing movies. Or I could teach literature, but only for the types of books I like, like people writing funny essays or nonfiction books. I think I would like that, even though I’m not that good at analyzing literature.

What’s one thing students do that always makes you laugh?

Sometimes students are spaced out and that’s kind of funny, [especially when] they don’t even have their notebooks out. I don’t get mad as much as “What are you doing? How are you supposed to learn in class without having your notebook out?” If someone does it over and over, it kind of gets me mad.

What’s the most surprising thing a student has ever asked or said to you?

Sometimes students research you on Google, and they ask you “Is it true that you did this or that?” Sometimes they ask a question. For example, I used to do standup comedy as a hobby, so there’s some videos online of me doing it. Some students will say, “Is it true that you used to be a standup comedian?” I wasn’t a professional, but I just did it for fun. Or they say, “Is it true that you wrote this book?” When a student researches you and then brings it up, you kind of don’t know what to say. So that’s always surprising.

If you could go back in time and give advice to your high school self, what would you say?

I think I would tell my high school self to really become better at not procrastinating. I really had a problem with procrastination, but I’m much better now. In college, I wasted a lot of time. I wasn’t totally incapable since I eventually learned to be on top of things, but maybe if I was more serious or had better work habits, I would have gone further in math. Maybe I would be a professor with a PhD in math. When I finished my undergrad, I hadn’t learned as much math as I could have. So I wasn’t good enough to go further, and at that point, what was I going to do? Go back and relearn the first four years? So I think I would have taken my work more seriously. There was a consequence because your options get limited when you waste this important time.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

“You should try to do something you have passion for.” I don’t know if anybody actually said it to me, but that idea out there is important. I think you have a happier life if your job is something that you enjoy. Don’t just do something because it makes more money.

What’s one thing you wish more students knew about you or your class?

I think as I get older, I get a lot more patience and am nicer about if a kid is late to class or if they don’t do their homework. But it really does bother me because I really take my job seriously, so I want people to be on time. I don’t get mad or lose my temper and yell at people, but it does bother me when people don’t start the work right away. I don’t have the energy I used to have where I would make a point, and get mad at the class. When I was a younger teacher, you had to get mad at the class, but here at Stuy, you don’t really have to get mad.

Fun Questions! 

Favorite movie?

I think there’s about five movies I would call my favorite. The original Rocky movie, the original Die Hard movie, the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. There’s several comedies that are tied for my favorite movies, like What about Bob?; another one’s called Midnight Run. I also like Arthur, the original movie from the 1980s. It’s a movie about a billionaire forced to marry someone he doesn’t want to marry.

Night owl or early bird? 

My natural sleeping time would probably be to stay up until two in the morning. But I have no trouble waking up at five or six in the morning, I don’t need that much sleep. But if I was retired and had total freedom, I would go to sleep at two and wake up at eight.

Favorite musical?

When I was a kid, my mother and stepfather were actors, so I like some of the old school musicals like Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha. But recently I liked Dear Evan Hansen, Hamilton, and In the Heights.

Introvert or extrovert?

I’m definitely an introvert. Sometimes people think I’m an extrovert because I’m up on stage singing, but outside in my real life, I’m pretty socially awkward. When I go to a party or something, I have a lot of trouble making small talk with people. I think I just bore them really badly, because the only things I want to talk about are things that interest me. I’m not really that interested in what other people have to say. I start asking them questions, then I get the feeling really quickly that they want to be elsewhere.

Favorite song? 

I’m a big Billy Joel fan, so my favorite song is some Billy Joel song.“You May Be Right” and “Movin’ Out” are my two favorite Billy Joel songs, I would say.

Dream vacation destination?
I think I’d like to go to Hawaii. Just relaxation. The shade, reading, and I think I like barbecue food. I’d like a luau, which is a roasted pig. I think I’d like that a lot, along with people drinking beer.

Favorite math topic?

I don’t know if it counts as a topic, but the history of math. It means that you’re studying a little bit about everything. I like geometry a lot, I like algebra. I think about what my favorite proofs are and they use ideas from geometry and algebra. I’m not the biggest fan of trigonometry. What’s funny, though, is that I don’t care for calculus, even though that’s supposed to be the goal that we try to achieve, the holy grail of math.