Equations are not the only thing Wayland High School math teacher Hannah Marton loves. She also has an affinity for music. Two and a half years ago, Marton began playing the clarinet.

“I asked Mr. Oneschuk, ‘What should I play?’ and he said ‘Smile. You have an overbite; you should play clarinet.’ I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it’s the perfect instrument,” said Marton. “I absolutely adore it.”

Marton often practices her clarinet before school and welcomes the advice of the music teachers she shares an office with.

“It definitely gives me a dose of humble pie every day,” said Marton. “That experience that ‘you can try very hard and not succeed, but just keep on going and still try,’ is so important because it gives you that extra empathy as a teacher to know what the students feel when they try hard and still don’t do as well on a test as they wanted. I think we should all put ourselves out of our comfort zone once in a while to experience what it’s like to be a student again.”

Empathy is not the only thing Marton has brought from rehearsal to the classroom. After reflecting on the music she was playing, she brought her clarinet into class and challenged her students to find deeper messages within the music.

“I think that math is fun in itself, and if you bring enough interesting questions, you show the beauty of mathematics,” said Marton.

To Marton, learning math is not about getting good grades. She would rather her students learn the material than worry about the letter attached to it.

“Though originally I loved being a teacher in Hungary, I love being a teacher anywhere,” said Marton.