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Dr Bill Pender served in the Mathematics department from 1975–2008, Subject Master in Mathematics 1994-2005, Master-In-Charge, HSC and TES Analysis 1992–1994 and Senior Master in Academic Extension from 2006–2007. Bill was interviewed by Mr Steve Gonski.

 

You arrived at Grammar with expertise in pure maths, but limited experience as a school teacher. Can you tell us what those early days were like?

I arrived at Grammar with a PhD in group theory, a major in physics, excellent training in piano and church choirs, wide reading in theology, reasonable fluency in German and several successful years teaching mathematics at the University of Sydney. This all seemed to be excellent preparation for Grammar’s distinctive Greek view of teaching the separate language and structure of each discrete discipline, while constantly keeping in view the important interrelationships among the disciplines – so providing the intellectual foundation of the boys. Mathematics particularly, with its secret language and its Janus position between the humanities and sciences, becomes far richer and livelier, and an essential part of life, when taught in this way.

But I had no wisdom about adolescent boys. In fact, I had come out of the sixties, with its continual attacks on all authority, and felt I had no right to tell any boy what to do. In my interview, Alastair Mackerras asked me, “Can you rule the roost?”, to which I nervously replied “Yes”, and only realised much later that he was quietly telling me what it was I had to learn.

Alastair’s wisdom and kindness was a protective shield and blessing over the School. And as I battled at first with my chaotic classes, masters from Mathematics and other departments quietly chatted with me, giving me hints, but mostly explaining the attitudes and values of the School. They, and the values they taught me, carried the same wisdom and kindness as Alastair. I felt very safe. John Duffy, my outstanding Subject Master, guided my teaching, in particular. There was an unspoken understanding: I helped masters with some tricky maths, principally ‘New Maths’ and probability, and he taught me how to teach boys with affection and firmness.

The collective wisdom of the boys is extraordinary. Without knowing it, they can teach masters how to teach and how to live. A rowdy 3A were laughing and throwing paper aeroplanes. I warned them that the next boy would have a detention. The top Form III boy stood up theatrically, and with a huge smile threw a plane. I nervously gave him a detention and he replied with full dignity, “Sir, that is the first detention that I have ever received in this School”. The rest of the lesson went perfectly because they had shown me who was boss, and they really wanted to learn maths from me. That taught me so much. By the end of the year I had worked most things out.

Pictured: Bill’s first Mathematics
Subject Master, Mr John Duffy

Classroom Gorillagram.jpg

Maths has always been a very strong subject at our School. Could one of the reasons for this be that we have not had an over-emphasis on technology?

We, and all departments, use technology with no hesitation whenever it is useful to do so, but not otherwise. I and many other masters can write scripts and simple programs. Mathematicians invented computers, so we don’t like being told how to use them.

You taught all levels, but was there an age group that you particularly enjoyed teaching?

Form I classes are magical, because the boys are still children, with sudden enthusiasms for fragments – the infinitude of whole numbers, and constructions using compasses – with vast implications later. Form V have just become capable of understanding large structures and respond with great enthusiasm to the grand structure of calculus and its role as a superhighway for science. I would have said Form VI above all, but recently the demands of the UAI have tended to overwhelm many boys.

Pictured: Dr Bill Pender is presented with a gorillagram during his class

Bill, your colleagues have noted that you often made a big effort to talk with masters from outside the Maths department. Do you think that this was helpful to you as a teacher and, indeed, as a person?

In the seventies, I completed an honours degree in Early English language and literature at Macquarie University. That strengthened the mediaeval insights I gained in Germany, and I often read sagas and romances to my classes. I could also talk with more insight to the School’s humanities masters, and I perhaps humanised maths a little for them, while learning a great deal from them about their subjects. The understanding and respect among masters and for other subjects is a crucial strength of the School and its happy Common Room, and many of us helped maintain this. You can’t teach without learning.

A decade later in 1989, I took a one-year position at the University of New South Wales Mathematics, lecturing and tutoring. This opened valuable contacts outside the School, including evening lectures at the University of Sydney – very much in line with Headmaster Dr RD Townsend’s initiatives when he arrived that year. Ralph Townsend grasped the opportunity and soon a number of Mathematics masters completed master’s degrees at the University of New South Wales and/or took up similar one-year positions at UNSW, who have since made the position permanent and open to other schools.

Pictured: Inaugural UNSW Teaching Fellow Dr Bill Pender (third from left) along with some other former Fellows. Courtesy of UNSW School of Mathematics and Statistics

A maths text book co-authored by Bill for Cambridge University Press (1).jpg

I believe that, in your retirement, you are still involved in writing textbooks. What are you currently working on?

A further consequence was the invitation in the 1990s to write calculus textbooks for Cambridge University Press, for which I put together a team from Grammar. Yet another edition of Cambridge Mathematics is in production.

This is the place to praise Grammar’s excellent Mathematics department. We discussed, we argued courteously, we learnt constantly from each other, and we respected each master’s knowledge and teaching skill. Our textbooks are very much the collected teaching wisdom of the whole department.

Pictured: An edition of the maths textbook co-authored by Bill Pender and Sydney Grammar School masters for Cambridge University Press

Pictured: L-R: Mr John Matarese, Mr Jeff Chisholm and Dr Bill Pender at the Ex-Grammar Staff Luncheon

Do you have any great memories or anecdotes of your experiences in the classroom and the extraordinary young mathematicians that you taught?

Our textbooks are also the result of the boys’ wonderful exuberance, intelligence and determination. When I presented a new idea, they would routinely tear it apart, reconstruct it, relate it to other things and generally respond with great enthusiasm. Listen carefully, or you will miss a new proof from a Form I boy that the square root of 2 is irrational (now in our textbooks), or that you have forgotten about jazz rhythms when discussing primes and music, or that this HSC question has a much clearer solution. The Grammar classroom and the boys’ enthusiasm is constantly in the textbooks that we are writing.

It was written in your valete inThe Sydneian of 2008 that you “played a leading role in preserving the integrity of our high school mathematics courses in NSW”. Are you able to expand on this?

The University of New South Wales academics got me heavily involved in syllabus discussions at a time when our extraordinary courses, written by the famous Professor Room in the 1960s, were coming under serious threat from educationalists influenced by poorly grounded American ideas. At this time, we managed to hold things off due to the fierce and persistent defence from academics.

But the universities seem no longer willing to persist, and the 2017 and 2024 syllabuses have sadly been adversely affected. Mathematics uses precise language and logic and arises out of counting and geometry that we see. These syllabuses misuse mathematical language and make errors, and many ideas are incoherent and out of order, forcing unnecessarily complicated methods. Extension pupils must study topics too hard for Year 11, and geometry is suppressed wherever possible. The flow of calculus has been damaged, and the courses have lost unity and vision. But we are making things as coherent as possible in our textbook revision and hope for a replacement of the imperious Professor Room.

I hear that you had a major medical scare at College Street in 2005. What happened and how did you recover so quickly?

I am alive and well today due to the wonderful skill of St Vincent’s Cardiology, but initially to the speed and effectiveness of the School Nurse, a number of masters and boys. I can read, I can go walking, I can learn more computing, and most importantly, I can play with my granddaughters. My mind seems unchanged. I particularly want to thank Jeff Chisholm, who took over the department from me, and all the Mathematics department, and former Headmaster Dr John Vallance, for the respect and kindness they gave me and the allowances they made when I returned.

Pictured: Sydney Grammar School Staff and members of the Common Room in 1998. Dr Pender is seated in front row, third from right

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