My name is Robin Bergsohn (aka Rob Salmon – my step Dad’s last name)

 

I had Mr. Boyle for Algebra in 8th or 9th grade – I can’t remember now. This would have been sometime around 1967.

 

I was pretty bad in Math, and the class was mostly made up of kids who were not very academically minded. Back then, the schools had some type of “tracking system” and they would group students according to how good they were in school. Most of us in Mr. Boyle’s algebra class that year were not very good students. At that time, New York State had standardized tests in certain subjects like Algebra – they were called the “regents tests” We all had to take the NYS Algebra Regents Test at the end of the year.

 

Mr. Boyle teaching methods were absolutely brilliant.  He taught us the step by step methods for doing every type of problem in the curriculum. I recall how he taught us to add and subtract negative numbers.  He brought in monopoly money (fake dollar bills) and had a student stand in the front of the class. To illustrate subtraction, he asked the student to drop a certain number of bills, and then count what she had left over in her hand.

 

I took the regents test at the end of the year – I got one question wrong and scored a 98.  One girl scored a perfect hundred! But the most amazing thing of all what the one kid (I won’t mention his name) who was one of the worst students in the whole school scored a 78. This kid wasn’t stupid, but he never paid any attention or did a stitch of work in all the years I knew him.  For a kid like him to score a 78 on an Algebra test was nothing short of miraculous.

 

There was no one, and I mean no one, that Mr. Boyle could not teach.

 

I never forgot him, and I have told this story about Mr. Boyle dozens times to friends and acquaintances over the years. This man had a profound influence on me, and I think many other children that he taught over the years. He was gentle and caring.  God had given him a gift, and he used it well.

 

As I write this now thinking of his death the tears are flowing from my eyes. He was one of the greatest people I ever encountered. My God bless him and keep him always.