Hur-shiu Webb

THE MISS PORTER’S SCHOOL MAGAZINE

FALL 2021

THE CLASSROOM OF

Here are five fun things to know about incoming Math Department Chair Hur-shiu (HER-shee) Webb: She has taught math for 17 years, moved nine times before graduating from high school (in Malaysia), runs 50 miles a week, is wild about the St. Louis Cardinals and has two young daughters who call her Zebra rather than Mom.

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The Asian Student Alliance advisor and cross-country coach also teaches what has been called “a very cool” interdisciplinary seminar course somberly titled “Postcalculus Through Narrative.” The students read books like “Math Girls,” which convey complex mathematical ideas in story form. The concepts are often so abstract that students grapple with how they even qualify as math, she said. Classroom discussions are lively.

Ms. Webb has also been very involved in creating standardized learning objectives for all math courses and in figuring out ways to assess quantitative reasoning. “In English and history, students have take-home assessments all the time in the form of essays,” she said. “I was wondering what that would look like in a math class.” She decided the key was to ask students to create something. One of her take-home math tests, for example, might require a student to “write a function that has certain attributes,” or “create a story that incorporates the mathematical phrase 8C3 and P(A|B).”

“What I hope to do for my students is give them the best things I had in high school, or what I think anybody should have in high school.”

01 CARDINALS CAP:

I became a fan while attending Washington

University in St. Louis. The Cardinals will always be No. 1 with me!

02 FOOT FACTS:

These Asics have about 250 miles on them. I’m not super fast, but I cover a lot of miles!

03 MY ZOOM BACKGROUND:

As a passionate Trekkie, I think it’s only fitting to Zoom from the flight deck of the

Starship Enterprise.

04 “MATH GIRLS” BY HIROSHI YUKI:

Amazon describes this text as “a unique introduction to advanced mathematics, delivered through the eyes of three students as they learn to deal with problems seldom found in textbooks.”

05 ZEBRA:

My kids, Beata (Bea) and Andromeda, call me

Zebra because when Bea was 3 years old she decided I would be Zebra and Josh Bezdek (her dad) would be Giraffe.

06 FUN FACT:

I may be the only person to have the formula for the curve of the St. Louis Arch tattooed on my arm!

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