Mr. Michael Wyllie, math teacher, most recently teaching Pre-Calculus Honors and AP Calculus AB, is retiring this year after starting his Glenbard West teaching career in 1988.

Mr. Wyllie has many memories from his time at West. He coached basketball for a while and remembers the “last-second shots [that] players have made.” He has many teaching memories as well, having taught almost every class in the math department. However, his favorite memory happened the year that “[his] students got a Christmas tree into his classroom” and decorated his entire room before school started. It was a large tree that went “all the way up to the ceiling” and all the decorations stayed up for a while. Wyllie will miss these moments with his students: “interactions with [them],” ability to “talk about math with [them],” and instilling “a little joy in the subject matter.” Mr. Wyllie is passionate about math, stating, “There is beauty in it. There is elegance in it. It is truthful.” He loves “when student[s] [ask] questions about [math] to dig deeper.” 

As he retires, Mr. Wyllie leaves newer staff members and future teachers with the advice to learn through trial-and-error, by “jump[ing] in and doing it.” Mr. Wyllie also reminds the West community that “Glenbard West is such a beautiful place” and that the people who are a part of it are “great.”

For his retirement plans, Mr. Wyllie has left them open. He “[has not] thought much about retirement” because of the pandemic, which has made “preparing for each week […] unbelievable.” However, he considers tutoring or “[looking] for a job doing something else somewhere” during his retirement. All he knows is that he “[will] enjoy [his] time.”

Congratulations to Mr. Wyllie—West thanks him for all hard work and will miss him!