Teacher of the Year? It’s Dr. Evil

The best salesmen all have a good gimmick. Just ask Brea Olinda High School math teacher Scott Malloy--California’s newest Teacher of the Year--who has turned teaching into a dramatic art.

He spends every day trying to get kids to buy into the concept of math, and boy, has he got one heck of a gimmick.

Malloy, 36, has donned the costume of Dr. Evil--of Austin Powers fame--on

more than one occasion, arriving at work dressed up “for no reason.” He reprised that role on Halloween in the Homecoming Parade and for the school’s annual “Mr. Brea” contest.

For three years, entering as himself, he’d lost out. Last year, as Dr. Evil, he won.

No wonder paraphernalia from Dr. Evil and Austin Powers are plastered all over his classroom: on a computer screen saver, wall posters, a calendar, even in toy figures sitting atop his desk.

“I am not obsessed with Dr. Evil,” he says, and his students burst out in disbelieving laughter.

But after his first appearance in character, the gimmick stuck, and students filled his classroom with a steady supply of toys. “I understand now how frog collections start, but I don’t mind,” says Malloy, a 13-year teaching veteran. “You need some sort of shtick in this business.”

Dr. Evil, of course, has little to do with calculus, trigonometry or computer science, but he is the shtick that opens the door to learning.

Malloy’s friend and colleague, English teacher David Razor, is quick to point out that Malloy is quite serious. He enjoys talking politics, literature and current events. In fact, Malloy didn’t even think Austin Powers was all that great a movie.

In many ways, Malloy is the stereotypical math geek. He has been known to graph his weight and his eyes grow bright as he starts talking about Euclid and “gorgeous” theorems.

This is why, to his friends, the Dr. Evil persona is so amusing.

“He’s such a consummate professional,” Razor says. “Scott does that--he plays the role--but teaching is an act. It’s a calculated attempt to engage the students.”

It is obviously working. His students, in all seriousness, spout off teaching cliches, apparently meaning every word.

“He makes learning fun,” says Brian Malotte, 16.

“He tries to be your friend,” says Matt Case, 17.

“He’s my hero,” says K.C. Santos, 17. “There’s only one statement that wraps it up. Mr. Malloy is the King of the State. . . . And I don’t even like math!”

It doesn’t take long for the examples to start flying. He plays chess with Matt every day after school. He comes in at any hour to help a student with a difficult assignment. He challenges them. He entertains them.

And, says 17-year-old Kenny Edgar, “We sing!”

In Kenny’s trigonometry class, Malloy has taught his students a little ditty--”The Quadratic Equation Song”--that they sing to a jaunty melody, sometimes in rounds. “X equals negative B plus or minus . . .”--well, you get the point. “That’s the only reason I know it,” Kenny says.

In Malloy’s calculus class, he inspired his students to sing in Latin--quod erat demonstrandum (that which was to be proved)--in a monk-like chant at the end of each problem.

Malloy seems to find everything about math engaging.

“The limit of a product is the product of two limits,” Malloy tells the class. “So-o-o cute. Beautiful.”

Ever heard anyone say that about calculus?

“You want to say it to yourself because it sounds so nice,” he says. The students chuckle. “Tell your folks at the dinner table tonight.”

There are other signs that Malloy is making a difference. At the beginning of the year, students clamor to get into his classes. And we’re not talking about an easy A. This is as hard as high school math gets.

For kicks, his students last year painted the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus on a huge board and staked it into the hill outside Malloy’s classroom. It’s still there, Malloy points out, having survived rain, wind, sleet and a grass fire.

He worried that school administrators might be annoyed that the students had trespassed onto the hill beside the high school.

But one teacher remarked to Malloy that the math sign was “the greatest show of academic spirit in the last 10 years.” And Principal Doug Kimberly has been known to show it off to touring visitors.

Malloy is one of five California Teachers of the Year but the only one who will represent the state in national competition.

Malloy, who didn’t even take math his senior year in high school, reflects on what it’s like to be “perceived as a great teacher.”

“There’s nothing else I’ve ever liked,” he says in a rare serious moment. “You’re teaching kids. It’s metaphysical. I’m saying something and they say, ‘Oh, I understand it. It’s miraculous. . . . It’s corny, but you pass on education to young people. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

Principal Kimberly announced news of Malloy’s award over the school public address system, breaking in during class time.

“They only do that for death and teacher of the year,” Malloy says.

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* ANOTHER TOP TEACHER

State also honors Laguna Hills High School art instructor. B4