When mathematics teacher Elisabeth Wehr began teaching at Trinity in 1986, the school had fewer than 450 students, and everyone seemed to know each other by name. Forty years later, she remains a cornerstone of the math department, representing a link between this community’s past and present.
“My best memories (as a young teacher) were being able to work with my old former teachers,” Wehr said. “Just getting to interact with … my Calculus, Honors Pre-Calculus and AP Calculus teacher, (who was) still teaching math and college counseling at the time, my old history teacher, the third headmaster, and my old Spanish teacher.”
To Wehr, these relationships made Trinity feel like a second home. She quickly understood the value of personal connection between teachers and students.
“I was a shy student,” Wehr said. “I wasn’t one (who) was going to talk out in class if I didn’t understand. There was no way in the world. But I could walk over and, one-on-one, see my teachers after school and get the personal attention.”
This tight-knit community was a characteristic of the Trinity she recognized, as both a student and young teacher. In her early years, she could name almost every graduate. However, even as the school expanded, she believes that its small class sizes and sense of community have stayed strong.
“While we do lose that personalization of knowing everyone on campus, we’ve still grown the whole school, and the faculty as well,” Wehr said. “Class sizes are still super small. We have a lot more opportunities with the bigger number (of people at Trinity).”
Wehr’s teaching style has evolved alongside the school. Although she once focused on structure and precision, she now embraces responsiveness and flexibility as one of her core principles, adapting her approach to fit each class and student.
“(My teaching style) is so different that it’s ridiculous,” Wehr said. “When you’re first starting to teach, I was much more rigid in everything. I’ve gone much more into the inquiry-based (style). … Every student and every class is like its own little microcosm in its own little world. I might do something differently in one class than another because that’s best for that class atmosphere.”
Despite these changes, the heart of her work has not changed: the people. Wehr recalls nearly abandoning her teaching career early, only to realize that true fulfillment comes from personal relationships.
“About five years in, I was about ready to leave teaching because I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in it,” Wehr said. “I had long talks with my dad and some of the other teachers who were here, and I realized I was pushing too much on just thinking of math rather than working with the students.”
Now, as she approaches her 40th year in the classroom, Wehr continues to shape generations of Trinity students with that same level of perseverance and dedication she once possessed.
“We are a college preparatory school, and we’re not going to be apologetic that we’re hard,” Wehr said. “If it’s not the school for everybody, that’s fine. I love that we’re still equally strong.”
