By Andrew Moyer ‘22
In 1983 he graduated high school here at Regis Jesuit, and then came back. This is the story of 19 year Regis Jesuit teaching veteran and attendee Paul Malsam.
“I was real shy and quiet, and didn’t say a whole lot,” Malsam says, speaking of his time as a student.
The very outgoing humorous math teacher’s past self would be unrecognizable to students today. By digging holes and building tree houses one would struggle to believe the happy vocal Mr. Malsam was ever quiet, shy student.
“I didn’t know I wanted to be a teacher until I was a junior in college,” he said.
Mr. Malsam started teaching at Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, for three years. He has a masters in administration and a bachelors in mathematics. After Teaching in Kansas he moved back to Colorado and began working at the Sylivan Learning Center
The Sylivan Learning center works with kids to get them up to grade level. “If a kid is in 8th grade and can’t multiply and divide we work with them to master those skills,” discussed Malsam. Malsam worked at Sylivan for ten years, starting as a teacher then progressing to the director of the program.
“My kids were young at Sylivan and I didn’t see them much anyhow… and I didn’t mind working on weekends or late at night,” Malsam said.
Mr. Malsam then moved on to Regis Jesuit as his kids became school age,”When I was getting home at 3:30 they were getting home at 3:30, when I had weekends off they had weekends off,” he said. Mr. Malsam has been teaching math at Regis for 19 years.
“They both had their pros and cons,” he says.
Although Mr. Malsam graduated from CU Boulder with a Masters in Administration and a bachelors in mathematics, he enjoys teaching more.
“The kids keep me young, when you deal with youth you kinda see things from their perspective so they always kinda keep you engaged and energized,” Balsam said.
Not only do the kids keep Mr. Malsam feeling young and energized they also remind him of himself as a kid he said,” Technology has changed some things, they’re not nearly as creative as when I was a kid.. because you had to come up with your own thing.”
Entertainment was different when Mr. Malsam was a kid,”I liked when the water gate came out in 1972…there was no television for like a month or two that summer so you learned a lot of things outside… digging holes, flying kites, building tree houses that sort of thing,” In addition to digging holes during the 1972 watergate hearings every Easter the Malsam children dug a hole in their back yard. This hole that they dug was filled with gifts from the Easter Bunny.
Being a teacher for 19 years at Regis his favorite part of the job is,”when students come back 5, 10, 15 years later after the fact when they’re in a career and doing something that I taught them.” With the pros of a job come the cons too. Tough times hit the whole school community pretty hard. “You always feel like you could‘ve done more to reach out the those kids that were depressed.”
But for Malsam the pros outweigh the cons,” time goes by faster for me when I’m in a classroom working with students than it does when I am sitting in an office.”