Paideia in Words & Pictures

A year ago we began to do video interviews with a few Paideia teachers. Dennis Diamond, a Paideia parent and professional in the field has done the filming; Susan Levitas ‘79 is the interviewer.

The video has been broken into parts for better online viewing. You will need the "Quicktime" plugin to view these, which can be found here: Quicktime

Steve Sigur - 1946-2008

Steve was one of the first interviews. The interview was done in the fall and is entitled “The Math and Life of Steve Sigur”.

Steve taught at Paideia for 29 years. He first came in 1974 from Northside High School, where he had gone to school; he stayed at Paideia until he went off for five years beginning in the late 1970s to pursue a doctorate in physics at University of Maryland, and then returned to us in the mid-1980s. In the early years of our high school, Steve was most of our math department, as well as teaching courses in physics, William Blake, music, coaching basketball, and overseeing a wide range of independent studies. A brilliant mathematician and physicist, Steve was equally successful and happy teaching all levels of mathematics. One comment we have heard repeatedly over the last year, and beautifully written about in the scores of recent letters from alums and current students read to Steve, is how much confidence Steve gave those who had either given up on math or felt they were hopelessly behind. Steve saw the beauty in math and was able to reveal it to so many others.