Are we having Feng Yet?

Downtown Exeter. No Filter

F drew the short stick this semester and was assigned to the class of one Mr. Feng, professor of mathematics, for what is an accelerated version of something. (Don't ask me) Anyway, Feng teaches all levels of math there, so it is no particular honor to have him.

There are kids who say they come to Exeter just to be in one of his classes. Exonian Mark Zuckerberg cited him as his most influential teacher (he wrote Zuckerberg's recommendation for Harvard); and the Chinese parents have been known to arrive on their hands and knees to meet him. If you revere math, he is the one you want to teach your kid. The stories abound: how he berates kids who he thinks aren't trying that hard, or who make careless errors- asking kids how they even got into Exeter, or in one case, asking a girl to leave the room and not come back until he was no longer a teacher.
Anyway F was game.

This is just part of his CV from the school website on him: 
Mr. Feng’s professional interests deeply relate to problem-solving-based math activities. He designed the course Mathematical Problem Solving at Yale University and taught it from 2013 to 2015. He has served as a coach of the USA International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) team since 1997; was deputy leader of the USA IMO delegation; an assistant director of the USA Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP); and the leader of the USA IMO delegation and the academic director of the MOSP for ten years. He is a coordinator at IMO 2015, and has been a member of the USA Mathematical Olympiad Committee since 1999.

He also coached girls JV soccer for many years, had many winning seasons, including one perfect one. No doubt he was very good at devising plays: "Now Skylar, you run 45 degrees south of Henrietta, while Pammy dissects the semi circle in front of the goal. "

So we went to his class. Feng ignores all us parents as we enter. There is only one girl; she seems to be friends with Frederick. Feng is not the reedy bespectacled person I imagined- more teddy bear shaped, in dad jeans. Thomas said he looks like a man who regrets he didn’t take an extra headache pill that day. He finds mistakes, non attention to detail, feeble attempts- he finds these things highly irritating. He is not impressed by your kid, hell he is not impressed with his own- a brilliant kid who is good friends with Chico (and also applying to Cambridge).

There is a PHD student who sits in the back of the class, learning how to be a teacher like him.  Feng is reputedly not impressed with him either.

So the class starts and the kids who are sitting closest to Feng are laughing nervously at his comments about idiotic things he has seen. Clearly this is part schtick- he is really pretty funny. But he is also genuinely annoyed by the existence of stupid and careless that seems so abundant in the human race.  A student goes up to the board and scribbles away while describing his process. Feng is armed with a little red laser. He whips the light over to one little blob of chalk and asks what the hell is that. The kid- a thin handsome 11th grader in glasses tries to explain. Feng pauses as if to decide whether he can let this go; the kid has clearly got the right answer, but as Frederick can attest, Feng is not teaching creativity here. Math is creative at some level, but not with this group. Someone asked me how high this math was. Basically if you start at the lowest math class at PEA, you will graduate in a math class called 300 something. This is 500 something. So F was at college level courses last year, and will finish at the highest math in the official course catalogue. But of course there are unlimited other electives one could take- including the famous math 999 which is just whatever the best kids conjure up to learn. And remember in this class there are a few who are in 11th grade- meaning a full year ahead of F's program. So to say Feng is not dazzled by Frederick Wehlen is to put it mildly. What is so gratifying about it is how the kids delight in this treatment. Later when we got to Boston and we were having a conversation about how he really was so very lucky to have scored the parents he did (a fun topic to return to often, in my opinion) and he agreed he got in the right line for parental assignments. "The only person I would want to swap you for as a parents is Mr. Feng. " (???!!!) This is the man who handed him a 65 out of 100 on a test primarily because he answered correctly, but he didn't do it the Feng way. The man who may crush his MIT/CATECH dreams with one swipe of his pen and a B+. He wants him to be his daddy. Point is, there is some hope for the youth of this world- there is some hope for young men. They don't need to take this class- they don't need to be told they are ordinary and need to work harder. But they do.

F jumps up to answer his problem, and the red laser is blessedly down. But then Feng asks him how he could express that more formally. He wants F to express it both ways. I don't understand anything, but I do see how he is hammering procedure and fanatical exactness. The only time we saw a real glimpse of how he acts when parents aren't there, is when all the kids were told to do a problem at the board, and one guy realized he had written down a totally different bunch of numbers. He just copied it wrong from the book to the board- but it was massively wrong.  And Feng just goes after him- "how could you get so many numbers off? I can see one maybe? but so many?" So if Feng catches you making a careless error in the dark corner of the class, and even though you find it and correct it, and absolutely no harm was done, even then, he is pissed. It may seem mean, but if any of them turns out to be in charge of making my airplane, or bridge or vaccine, I am glad Feng's voice will be in their ear, calling them an idiot.

I asked Thomas why the right answer is sometimes not the right answer in this class. I thought in math there was an answer and that was it. He explained that there is always more than one way to get to the answer. Feng is teaching one process that they must learn. If they stumble another way to the answer, that is a different class.

What else? We went to a physics class with just the loveliest teacher ever- big fuzzy sweater, ill fitting jeans, Birkenstocks. They split into groups and did an experiment. These are sort of fun- the parents hang in the back and chat. Unfortunately I am stuck talking to this woman whose son is way ahead of mine, and I know because she spent the full hour reciting his stats. He has finished all the APs he needs for Cambridge already (F still has three). He took F's math last year; he is just simply genetically superior, I had to agree. She wasn't trying to show off...she was just so nervous that she was chanting his accomplishments as some sort of mantra. I am not sure she knew I was there. Clearly she doesn't have a lot of friends, but doesn't know why. Thomas and I were crab walking to the side away from her as she went on and on. We were trying to talk to the mother of Frederick's good friend who is from Chicago. We wanted to talk about deep dish pizza and Wentworth gossip. But this woman - an engineer and HBS graduate (she told us that too) wanted in.

KMH and I are trying to manifest Caltech happening so we can go to Pie and Burger and flirt with astrophysicists in the sun. But this is going to take a lot of manifesting to get him in with kids like this around.

So onward. Frederick has a few more weeks of this blistering work load; then an easy semester where he takes all the art classes and public speaking classes he has blown off until now; then spring is brutal again with advanced astronomy and Quantum physics. Keep meditating people..

Head of Charles was fun, but freeeeeeezing, so watching it was brutal. Below are the boys in the boat. Charlie and his hockey friend are the muscle in the middle. They took up crew only months ago, and they are going to the one and two college crew teams: Yale and Cal. The other two are going to Brown and I don't know where....anyway they are good, but had a rough day.


xx

CMB is trying to bring back the visor in the fashion world. Watch this space.....

Charlie modeling the pea coat I got him. F is trying to ridicule. 

Me with the coxswain of the Exeter boat. He is only a 10th grader and had a huge burden on him. Well done. 

The only photo I dared take of the Feng, the myth. Be afraid people. He wants you to do better, whatever you are doing. 

I love this school....and I want these t shirts. 

F at the four seasons when he finished his college essays.

Charlie and Will- Will, with the best form is in the front. CMB is one of two muscles in the middle.