Scott Hoenig is an Instructor in Mathematics, a House Counselor in Fuess, and the Assistant Dean of Studies for Advising. He coaches Ultimate Frisbee in the Spring Term and Disc Games in the Fall Term. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, cross-country, skiing, camping, and board games.
How did you discover your passion for teaching?
While I was in graduate school at [Boston University], once I realized that I didn’t want to do the PhD, I needed to do one more year to complete the coursework and take the exam for the master’s degree. During that time, I was a teaching assistant, and I found that I really enjoyed that role. I had some professors that I looked up to that were what I thought of as good teachers. I started to see myself more in that role. During the summer between my graduate school years, I worked for Merrill Lynch and that helped me realize that I did not want to go into finance. I found it pretty boring, and I didn’t want to dress up in a suit and tie and go into the office all day. I decided to see if I could come back to Andover and teach. I enjoyed the work, and I’ve been here ever since.
Why is calculus your favorite math subject to teach?
I really like the subject of mathematics. I find it fun, challenging, and helpful in understanding the world around us. I enjoy helping students see that same thing in math: the fun of it, the fun challenges it can give you, and how it can help you understand how things work in the world. I enjoy teaching calculus. I’ve taught it for many years, and one of the reasons I like it is because calculus is a branch of mathematics that is then used in many other areas of mathematics that come next. It’s really important if you go on in your studies in mathematics to have a good foundation in calculus. I also like the utility of it in various different applications that you can do once you learn mathematics.
What do you love most about coaching Ultimate Frisbee?
I love Ultimate, [and] I’ve been playing since college. It’s a sport that is a ton of fun to play, and it’s got a lot of really cool strategy and skill. The thing that sets it apart from other sports is that it’s self-officiated, meaning that the players are the ones who make the calls. There are no referees, even at the top levels of the sport. This means that there needs to be something called the “spirit of the game” built into the rules of the game, which assumes that nobody is going to violate the rules on purpose. There’s a real necessity for sportsmanship and trust between opponents. I enjoy coaching a sport that puts such a high emphasis on sportsmanship, respect for your opponents, intense competition, and trying to play the best that you can and beat your opponent, but to do so in a way that afterward you can get together with the other team and talk about what good sportsmanship, camaraderie, and respect there was. I see students, who have never played before, play and it just changes who they are and how they see competitions in sports. I love being a part of that.
What do you like to do outside of campus?
I enjoy being outdoors. I enjoy hiking, cross-country, skiing, and camping, these are all things that I do with my family. We take camping trips every summer. We have a pop-up camper, [and] we tow that around [to] go camping and hiking together. I also really enjoy cooking, grilling in particular. When I can, I like getting out, being fit, and exercising. One thing we do as a family is that we play a lot of board games.
How have your teaching methods evolved?
Earlier in my career, there was more lecture-based. I would write things on the board and solve them and then say, “Now you try one.” What I found throughout the years, through experience, is that that’s not the most effective way to learn. I was pleased to see that it was something agreed upon by various different authors of books and articles that I’ve read over the years, especially in the past few years since I’ve been teaching with a feedback-first approach in Math 320 through Math 340. I try to employ practices that are going to encourage students to really think and not just memorize and mimic.
What’s one thing that others don’t know about you?
Many people don’t know that I wrote my senior honors thesis on the dynamics of a Frisbee, meaning I spent an entire semester researching a disc of a Frisbee and modeling its flight using a system of second-order differential equations and computer models, which were very rudimentary back in the late 1990s, to describe how a disc flies through the air.
How did you get to achieve the level of coaching certificate? What motivated you to do it?
Our ultimate team competes in a couple of different leagues. We compete in the New England Prep School Ultimate League which is all private schools, and we also compete in the Massachusetts High School Ultimate, which is high schools both private and public all over Massachusetts. In order to be a part of the Massachusetts High School Ultimate league we have to be a part of the USA Ultimate National Governing Body, and in order to do that, I have to be certified as a coach. I have gone through certification processes in order to continue to be a certified coach so that our team can continue to compete in the league that has all the public schools in it because that’s where really good competition is. I try to schedule us against the best teams in the area to do that we have to be a part of the USA Ultimate.
What’s your favorite Paresky Commons meal?
I have to say the salmon poke bowl, where I combine the salmon and the tofu together with a big helping of avocado and some sriracha on top.
How has Ultimate at Andover changed since you first got here in 1999?
When I first got here in 1999 we only had 13 players, which meant that I had to be the 14th player when we played seven on seven. At that point, we had a competitive team and a recreational team so the competitive team had 13 players, and a recreational team that’s something like 40 people who came out and they just played around. I supervised them, but it was not organized at all… Between the time when I arrived and the subsequent few years, we built a full interscholastic schedule. I left for a couple of years, and by the time I came back, we had established field space up on the athletic fields and we had transportation, which we hadn’t had before when we started out. We were having parents drive us, and we had actual school-provided transportation uniforms. In 2006, we applied for Varsity status and we were granted it. Since then, we’ve also established a [Junior Varsity] program for many years. Most recently, we’ve established a girls and non-binary Varsity team. Both of these teams now have full interscholastic schedules and Varsity letters’ full support of the athletic department.
If you had a superpower, what would that be?
I used to say flight, it was always my go-to but as I’ve gotten older and had kids of my own, it would be to control time. [I would want to] slow time down and even stop it, without getting older myself while it was stopped. I would do all my classwork and all my prep, then I [would] be able to spend more time with my family, get a little more sleep, get outside, and do more of what I like to do outside of teaching and coaching and such. Time’s the most valuable resource, and I’m not getting more of it.
