By Steven Shieller
Dr. Peter Esperanza, widely known as Numberbender, was a former mathematics teacher at Barstow High School; he is now a mathematics professor at Barstow Community College, and an associate instructor at Chapman University and West Coast University. He is known for his “flipped classroom model” of teaching in online platforms such as the Numberbender website and especially his ongoing Math tutorials in English and Filipino on his YouTube channel. He uploads numerous videos tackling lectures on topics ranging from but not limited to algebra, trigonometry, statistics, and precalculus, as his primary goal was to help students understand the subject better, never wanting them to feel the same struggle he had in dealing with learning mathematics during his college years.
During Behind the Numbers, hosted in a Zoom webinar and live streamed on Facebook on February 12, 2022, Dr. Esperanza had shared most of his unpredicted experiences to where he was brought now as Numberbender.
Dr. Esperanza graduated from De La Salle University, taking an undergraduate degree to where he had struggled most in learning mathematics. He observed how students who took STEM, even with them specializing in math and science, had the tendency of not liking math, since not all were gifted with a talent in numbers. As Dr. Esperanza had encountered difficulties in college, he had developed a way in order for him to excel in his field; it was to allocate more time in learning and practicing mathematics, even with the basics. His concept was that if he can spend more hours on his hobbies like practicing Taekwondo, then why not give the same amount of dedication in mastering his professional field in order to excel and finish college? As he did, practicing examples and problem sets over and over, he was able to graduate just as he planned and will now be able to proceed in his working career.
Dr. Esperanza had a lot of choices in mind, but his first dream was to be a programmer. Unfortunately, after encountering huge burnouts in computer programming from corporate work, he gave a shot in trying education in mathematics, a profession where he wouldn't expect to be his true calling. He first started teaching in China to high school students, then transferred to the US to be a math teacher in Barstow Highschool California from 2005 to 2017. It was a struggle in adapting to the new environment since Dr. Esperanza had to make a name for himself before he was to be acknowledged by his students.
After gaining a respectable place in Barstow Highschool, Dr. Esperanza initiated his YouTube channel with a primary reason to help his students in learning mathematics independently in the comfort of their homes, a.k.a the “flipped classroom model”, also targeting the students from his homeland the Philippines, since he observed that there were no online tutorials to be found using their native language. He then gained popularity through his method of teaching and was invited by Chapman University and West Coast University to teach online at their institutions.
For the past few years, Dr. Esperanza had finally achieved his goal of being a university professor and had increased the amount of audience watching his math tutorials on YouTube. He was surprised at how timeless his videos were, receiving great feedback from students to his videos uploaded as old as 7 years ago. He then found interest in testing the effectiveness of his methods through research, in which it was successful enough to advocate the flipped classroom model across countries.
All of this had brought him to where Numberbender is. Trusting on the process was never an easy task, “always find the way to work things for you,” mentions Dr. Esperanza. Even if the starting point is having a couple hundred subscribers, he continues to pursue in assisting students through their struggles in learning math through his online tutorials, and in return, is now renowned to have three-hundred thousand subscribers. “These are the things that help me as a person to never be complacent,” added Dr. Esperanza.
“Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit.”
A quote by Jonah Lehrer as he closed his speech by sharing his unpredicted experiences as a striving teacher and content creator.
Below is the group photo with Dr. Esperanza, the Science Speaks Laguna Team, and the Behind the Numbers Event participants.
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