Carlo Muro is a math and PE teacher at Riverside secondary and the best way to tell his story is with a few numbers.
47, 71, 12, 150, 40, 60, 7,050
They may not work in a graph but they’ll tell you a lot about this teacher who over his 47-year teaching career likely taught 7,050 students math and calculus, (based on 150 students a year or 30 in five classes).
Muro also taught PE and coached thousands of kids in tennis, basketball, volleyball and football over the years.
At 71 years of age, Muro is retiring — that’s 12 years later than most B.C. teachers, according to statistics.
He’s managed to stay fit and active, Muro said, and he believes his 40%/60% workload between math and PE kept him alert, healthy and positive.
“It just never seemed like a job to me. I loved coming to work every day and connecting with the kids,” Muro told the Tri-City News.
Muro was also a charter teacher at two schools in School District 43, which means he was among the first educators at Riverside when it opened in 1996. He also helped open Maillard middle school in Coquitlam when it opened as a junior school 17 years earlier.
In 2005, Muro was one of the first educators to bring a tablet to school as Riverside became a leader in embracing technology in the district. Now Muro says the younger teachers are way ahead of him on technology. Still, he learned how to use Microsoft Teams to teach virtual classes online during the pandemic this spring — including to four students who had gone home to Korea and Japan.
“I would never have believed in 1973 you could teach something in a classroom here and they would see it in Korea,” he acknowledged.
Students make YouTube video
Muro’s departure has not gone unnoticed: students in his Grade 9 math class posted a YouTube video saying why they will miss him and what they learned, and on Monday, Muro was greeted by a giant 4’x 6’ sign that was posted on his front lawn along with dozens of flamingos.
The card was created in the tech ed shop by colleagues, Dave Romani, Oliver Mietzker and Kabrham Kang along with Jacquelyn Collins and signed by most of the schools’ 80 teachers.
“It was pretty emotional,” Muro said of reading all the signed comments. “There were tears.”
For a numbers guy, it appears he touched a lot of hearts.
