Number
was the substance of all things. - Pythagoras
Pat McKeague, one of San Luis Obispo’s best-selling
authors, doesn’t rely on intricate plots or unique characters to captivate his
readers. He engages them by developing themes in mathematics using a human
cannonball, the Ferris wheel in the Orson Welles film “The Third Man,” and the
dragsters in the film “Heart Like a Wheel” as examples.
Since the publication of his first math textbook in the
mid-70’s, Pat has sold over three million books, from algebra to trigonometry,
mostly at the community college level, and he estimates that roughly four
million students have used his texts. After thirty-five years his sales are
still going strong, but there’s more to Pat’s interest in math than just big
numbers.
Pat’s parents moved from Superior, Wisconsin, to
California after World War II. Pat was born in Santa Barbara in 1946. His
father, a radio operator and a waist gunner in a B-24 Liberator, was shot down
over Albania and spent the last eight months of the war as a POW. He went on to
become the personnel manager for Ampex. Pat’s mother taught kindergarten. The
family moved south to the San Fernando Valley, and Pat eventually graduated
from Granada Hills High School, where he played football.
“Los Angeles in those days was an easy place to get
around. I remember driving to the San Diego Zoo for a date. Everything was
accessible and fun.” His favorite teacher, Victor Ansalone, was a New Yorker
who taught honors social studies. “Victor had been investigated for being a Communist.
He predicted America’s involvement in Vietnam long before it happened. He was
just an interesting guy who told the truth and shared his opinions about
history.” Pat, who at the time belonged to a social club called the Del Vikings
and didn’t consider himself honors class material, eventually dedicated one of
his books to Ansalone.
After high school Pat attended San Fernando Valley
State, now Cal State Northridge, where he met his wife Diane. They have two
children, Pat III and Amy, and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in San
Luis Obispo. In one of those turning points best appreciated from a distance,
had he been accepted to dental school, his first career choice, his success
story as a math teacher and author would not have happened. Due to the Vietnam
War and the fierce competition for graduate school deferments, his dental
school plans didn’t work out. He attended Brigham Young University where he
earned his master’s in mathematics in 1971, completing a two year program in
eleven months.
With a young family, and after getting rejections
from ninety-one companies for work in engineering or programming, Pat learned
about a teaching program in California for students with graduate degrees, and
three weeks later he was teaching mathematics at Lompoc High School. “I was
almost fired the first year. I had no control of the classroom. I shaped up the
last few months with the help of a fellow math teacher, Pat Clevenger, after
the principal told me he might not ask me back.”
As his skills improved and he began to really
enjoying teaching, Pat started applying to community colleges up and down the
west coast, eventually landing a job at Cuesta College where “Once again I got
lucky. I had an office right across the hall from Gil Stork, who became my role
model.”
Inspired by two Cuesta faculty members who had
published math textbooks, Pat wrote a chapter for an elementary algebra book
and sent it to eight publishers. Three rejected it, three showed an interest,
and two lost it. He accepted an advance and a royalty offer from Academic Press
and his first book, priced at $12.95, sold 6000 copies. “It had more mistakes
than any book I ever published. I called the teachers who used it, which turned
out to be the right thing to do. I revised that book and went on to write one
book every year for the next eight years, and eventually ended up with sixteen
titles,” Pat said. His pre-algebra and trigonometry texts became the
bestselling books in the country.
When I asked him the secret to his success, he said,
“I’m just a normal person who likes math and likes to teach. I write my books
from the student side, but they also appeal to teachers.” Pat’s company, XYZ
texts, now prints, publishes and markets his textbooks. New components are Math
TV, a website with instructional videos featuring Cuesta students demonstrating
problems, worksheets and electronic versions of his texts, and XYZ Homework, an
online homework and course management system that instructors can purchase with
the texts.
When he was teaching Pat devoted the first five
minutes of each period to something of interest from the real world that
complemented and enriched his instruction. Now, at a half dozen or more math
teacher conferences a year all over the country, he delivers that message,
suggests that teachers give themselves permission to develop a story about what
they’re teaching and get it out five minutes at a time. Pat’s talks include
Islam and mathematics, showing how algebra developed in the middle east
centuries ago; spirituality and mathematics; success in math and life; and the
previously mentioned references to the human cannonball, the Ferris wheel and
drag racing.
In addition to his devotion to math and teaching,
Pat has been involved with a variety of organizations in his local community:
4H, the Literacy Council, Friends of the Library, Creative Mediation and
others. He has also been a long time sponsor of the San Luis Obispo
International Film Festival.
My guess is that there are many students who
remember Pat McKeague as their best and favorite math teacher and many more who
have benefited from his approach to teaching math as presented in his
textbooks. He once told me a funny story that demonstrated his humble approach
to his success. Feeling the need to get back into the classroom, he applied for
a part time position at Cuesta. As he was going through his teaching background
and qualifications for the job during the formal interview, one of the
panelists quietly said, “And you wrote the book.”
As a math phobic who barely scraped through Algebra
II by the time I graduated high school, I wish I had learned from a teacher and
an advocate for math like Pat. Think of all the pain I could have avoided!
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