In, out, in out as he controls his breathing. Swoosh, the arrow hits the middle, gold, inner ring. A bullseye, something that IM3 and math analysis teacher Thomas Palsa is used to scoring in his archery competitions.
Palsa said that he has been teaching for four years, three of which he has been at PHS, but he has not always been a teacher. He began his career as a building contractor.
“I made furniture and cabinets for a while and then I went back to contracting,” Palsa said. “I really enjoyed it a lot, but I got tired of it and began looking for something else to do.”
Palsa had been teaching archery at the local archery range and had tried teaching right after college.
“I didn’t have the patience for it, and I think my age was too close to the people I was teaching; it was difficult for me,” Palsa said.
After getting tired of building he realized he wanted to teach, so he went back to school to get his teaching credentials, Palsa said.
“There are a couple of reasons that I came to Piedmont to teach,” Palsa said. “I didn’t want to be dealing with a lot of classroom management and I thought that Piedmont would be a good fit for my daughter.”
Palsa teaches IM3, math analysis, and honors math analysis at PHS.
“I think it’s really interesting how [Palsa] is able to bring fun into the classroom and make math class an enjoyable time,” junior JD Harrison said. “It’s really cool how he is able to crack jokes and actually interact with the students in a way that a lot of other teachers struggle with.”
Palsa’s students often advance to higher levels of math.
“[Palsa’s] classroom is right next door to mine and he teaches math analysis, so many of my calculus students had him the prior year,” Calculus teacher Amy Dunn-Ruiz said. “Every once in a while he used to come into my classroom to ask to talk to me, and my students are always really excited to see him because they really enjoyed having him as their math analysis teacher.
Outside of teaching Palsa enjoys spending time near Chabot at the local archery range. He has been shooting archery for 10 years and competes in nearby competitions.
“I shoot what’s called traditional recurve and there is not a nationally ranking system for it,” Palsa said. “It’s a small community; I would say I am maybe within the top five traditional archers in the state.”
According to archery360 the difference between a traditional longbow versus a traditional recurve bow is that the recurve bow has tips that sweep away from the archer. Recurves usually shoot arrows at faster speeds than longbows.
“[Palsa practicing archery] is really cool,” said Harrison. “What other teacher has a hobby like that?”
Palsa said he also enjoys spending time with his family and exploring nature throughout the Bay Area.
“I like to go over by Marin, that’s where I grew up, and I like hiking around Mount. Tam,” Palsa said. “I enjoy spending time with my daughter and now that she is getting older I’m hoping to do some backpacking with her.”
