Staff Spotlight – Jon Williams
Jon Williams is a Year 10 Year Level Coordinator and Maths Teacher
What do you love about your job?
That we’re all working together to try to improve the life chances of so many young people. There aren’t many nobler goals than that. Also the incredible variety of the job: working with both adults and young people; working in teams and autonomously; working indoors and outdoors; never quite knowing what may happen from one day to the next!
What made you want to study Mathematics?
Oh come on, what’s not to love about Maths…?! No other subject has the depth, the breadth, the elegance, the range of applications, or the history. It’s a language; it’s an art; it’s a science and it’s a problem-solving tool. It’s a facilitating subject for many others, and the range of employment opportunities for a mathematician is just vast. It both satisfies curiosity and generates it: every door opened and stepped through reveals more doors. It helps us to investigate and understand our universe, yet we can do it anywhere, at any time, and need nothing more advanced than a piece of paper and a pencil.
What is one thing you would go back and tell your 14-year-old self?
Enjoy the ride! Don’t worry too much about what life will bring. Just try things and grasp opportunities when they come.
What is one thing you would love to do if you could do anything?
A parachute jump. I very nearly did one once, when I ran the RAF section of a cadet force in the UK. A group of our cadets had spent a whole day training with British Army parachute instructors and then doing a jump. The cadets went first and all got to jump. The two staff – I was one – were to jump last. By the time the last cadets had jumped, the pilot felt it was getting too dark and called a halt.
If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would be seated at your table?
In no particular order… Nigella Lawson, The Queen, Winston Churchill, Jeremy Clarkson, Jesus Christ, Kylie Minogue, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev.
