Remembering Maclear Jacoby Jr.

Age 93, Washington, D.C.
Passed away on April 11, 2020

The word “algebra” is enough to make most people’s inner child recoil in horror. The thought of using a geometric formula might summon a panic attack.

Unless your teacher was Maclear “Mac” Jacoby Jr.

“Mac’s classes were unique,” said Peter Arnold, who graduated in 1982 from Bethesda’s Landon School, the all-boys prep school in suburban Maryland where Jacoby taught math for more than two decades. “You couldn’t wait to see how he’d use a little craziness to teach the finer points of algebra and geometry.”

Jacoby beguiled rowdy seventh- and eighth-grade boys with tales of his “dear Aunt Sally” — a mnemonic device the teacher used to remind his students to “divide, add and subtract” only after they multiplied the numbers in an equation. It’s been 45 years since Arnold sat in Jacoby’s chalk-covered classroom, but he still remembers the tricks his teacher taught him, including a shortcut for squaring two-digit numbers in a matter of seconds

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