Vol. 18, No. 39	Aug. 26, 1999

Career combines interests in mathematics and music

Math and music are the cornerstones of Michael Brook's career as a teacher and performer. He is an example of the theory that, for many individuals, talent in math and music go hand in hand.

Growing up in Skokie, Ill., Brook, who is a math educator at UD, first encountered what were to be the principal interests of his life and career as a young teenager. He found arithmetic "tedious and dreary" but was turned on by algebra. "Although 2+3 had no interest for me, 2X+3X=5X and its variables opened up new concepts," he recalled.

At the same time, he discovered the guitar and singing. "It was a period of years when folk music was coming to its own, and the Beatles and Rolling Stones were making their mark," he said.

Brook became a member of a group called The Tikis in high school, and they performed for "sweet 16" parties and at college dances and were the warm-up group for some Chicago club acts.

In college at the University of Illinois in Chicago, he joined a band known as the Pleazure Principal, named by members who were psychology majors. The band played five nights a week, and Brook was always behind on sleep. Brook recalled that his studies did suffer: "I occasionally dozed off in class and wasn't exactly Rhodes Scholar material," he said.

The band broke up, and Brook took up the other side of his career, becoming a certified mathematics teacher in Chicago urban neighborhood schools. "The kids were like kids everywhere-most of them good, a few bad. But the atmosphere of the school at that time was a bad scene, with drug addicts hanging out in the halls," he said.

During that period, he also received his master's degree in mathematics from Northeastern Illinois University.

However, music again became the motivating force in his life, and he came to Philadelphia in the late '70s to join a good friend and become a performer. He began doing solo work. He describes his technique as similar to a classical guitar player, with the thumb playing the bass and the other fingers playing the melody. His selection of music was eclectic-from classical composers to Cole Porter to Muddy Waters. He played at such clubs as the Comedy Works and was voted the Best of Philly for Offbeat Entertainment in 1983 by Philadelphia Magazine.

In 1984, Brook developed a musical lecture, "A Social History of 20th-Century America Through Popular Song." He played and sang during the lecture and looked at the stories behind popular songs and how lyrics were changed from the original to become less controversial.

Meanwhile, Brook was teaching part time at community colleges and later at LaSalle University as an adjunct professor. He brought his guitar and performing skills into the classroom and the students seemed to enjoy it, he said.

Teaching math increasingly became the focus of Brook's career. In 1988, he began teaching at UD.

He said he enjoys teaching college-age students and likes the University atmosphere and the use of its many resources, particularly the library and the Center for Teaching Effectiveness. He credits the latter office as being very helpful to him in his teaching career.

Brook's immediate goal is to finish his doctorate at UD. His research involves new methods of teaching elementary school-age children fractions through stories, to make math more relevant to their experiences. Now at the dissertation stage, he keeps big "Ph.D.s" tacked onto his bulletin board to remind him to keep plugging away.

Of course, he is keeping up with his music, but now mostly for recreation and pleasure. Once his dissertation is completed, music will probably emerge again as an integral part of his life.

-Sue Moncure