Her Story
Mary Jo Murray says teaching is her life’s work and who she is. As a child she taught younger siblings to tie their shoes and solve basic equations, and in junior high she tutored an older boy whose mother paid her one JFK half-dollar a session, the first of which she still treasures. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education at the University of South Florida and a Ph.D. in physical education curriculum and instruction at Florida State University. She taught high school physical education, then spent twelve years teaching and coaching at the college level, where she coached her softball team to an NCAA Final Four. She later took graduate mathematics courses and returned to high school to teach math.
On the first day of each class she asks students what they think about a “community of learners,” a phrase that stays at the front of her room all year. Students work at the board and in pairs, and a quiz rule says she must see partners talking quietly as she makes her rounds. No one sits down until everyone in the row understands the problem. Her walls are covered with student-made “bumper stickers” with positive messages about math. She teaches by Socratic questioning, and the goal, she says, is a competent young person who can and will think for himself or herself.
Her department chair describes walking into her class and finding 11 students at the whiteboard and 16 more working together at their desks, with Murray moving through the room, answering questions and asking probing ones. She teaches both highly capable freshmen in precalculus and a calculus course for seniors who have struggled in math, and he says her care for them is the same.
Beyond the Classroom
Murray is a National Board Certified Teacher (2001) and was named Secondary Math Teacher of the Year by the Dade County Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 2002 and a finalist for the same award by the Palm Beach Teachers of Mathematics in 2009. She was an American Softball Association All American pitcher in 1975, Florida’s high school softball coach of the year in 1995 and a national racquetball champion in the Women’s Senior/Masters Racquetball Association in 2007. She also has International Baccalaureate math training.
At Suncoast, she created a summer program called Jump Start with a colleague, now in its seventh year, to help incoming math, science and engineering freshmen. For two weeks, nearly eighty freshmen review Algebra 2 skills with more than fifty volunteer student mentors, and she says the mentors learn kindness and patience as much as the freshmen learn math. She also mentors the younger teachers in her department, including two former students who now teach at Suncoast, and she coaches two academic teams.
Philosophy Into Practice
Murray returns graded quizzes the next class and has students find their mistakes with red pens and a partner. She then opens “negotiations,” in which students can win partial credit by showing what they did right before going wrong. She believes that prior grades and test scores should never brand a student, so each new unit starts with review and a fresh outlook.
She names two issues in education: overcrowded classrooms and the minority achievement gap. In Miami, with as many as forty students in a class, she recruited upperclassmen as classroom math mentors, a program that spread to other schools after she presented it at county workshops. She also teaches a calculus course without trigonometry at the students’ pace, with no standardized test at the end, and says the students’ favorite days are the ones when they finally learned something.
“The overarching mandate, conspicuous at the front of the room, is that we are a “Community of Learners.””Mary Jo Murray
In Her Own Words
“Teaching is my life’s work, it is who I am.”Mary Jo Murray
“Work habits trump raw brainpower, in my estimation.”Mary Jo Murray
“At its best, a mutual admiration flows from both sides to create an authentic learning environment where moments of clarity become the norm and every student feels valued.”Mary Jo Murray
What Others Said
“Mary has a unique ability to reach and motivate students at all levels.”Suzanne Martin, nominator, colleague and former department head
“Mary, however, is extraordinary.”Randal A. Oddi, mathematics department chair, Suncoast Community High School
“Dr. Murray is a powerhouse.”Karen Whetsell, principal, Suncoast Community High School
“Dr. Murray’s goal truly is to help students understand challenging mathematical concepts.”Katrina Kidd, former student
“The passion she has for her students is immense and it was soon evident that teaching is her great love.”Kim Ellis, parent of former students