St. Viator teacher, 85, makes cover of math journal

In February, the Rev. Arnold Perham was named Mentor of the Year at the Arlington Heights Hearts of Gold dinner for his dedicated tutoring of Saint Viator math students and his work with its Querbes Scholars.

It turns out the 85-year old Viatorian mentors not only local students, but mathematicians around the world. An article written by Perham graces the front cover of the March issue of the official journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. It is his third article published in the periodical in the last five years.

The publication comes out every month during the school year and is read by more than 25,000 subscribers - including math teachers at high schools and universities across the country and around the world.

The latest edition features a sepia-toned photo of workers laying track for the first Transcontinental Railroad, circa 1865.

Perham is a history buff, with a particular interest in the Transcontinental Railroad, and this July will mark 150 years since the Union Pacific Railroad started construction. He and his sister, Faustine Perham, a professor emeritus of mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, used this rich history as a backdrop for a cross-disciplinary unit combining mathematics and history that they wrote for their mathematics colleagues.

In it, students were challenged to test statements made by rail executives to potential railroad investors that workers laid track at a rate of two miles per day.

Students studied track laid from Omaha going west to Promontory Summit, Utah, where tracks met up with those that had been laid going east from Sacramento.

In the article, Perham points to a historical marker in Ogallala, Nebraska, that pays homage to the Transcontinental Railroad: "Track laying was done by crews of Civil War veterans, emigrants, ex-miners, adventurers and gamblers. The crews averaged about two miles of track per day."

"The whole unit is meant to test historical statements made at the time," says Perham, who has taught math at Saint Viator all but five years in its 54-year history. "The accuracy of those rates is our focus."

He first developed the unit for freshmen Querbes Scholars, who plotted the data on a TI-84 calculator and an Excel spreadsheet. However, last year, Perham began incorporating data analysis using an app on the iPad, and it is that technology that he promotes in the article.

Students helped with historical research as well, finding newspaper accounts and advertisements about how fast the tracks were being laid by searching periodicals through the Library of Congress.

"They weren't graded; it wasn't for any class," Perham says. "They merely did it for the love of learning."

At the end of the year, students presented their findings to a panel of school administrators and teachers. One of those to sit in was Principal Eileen Manno, who wound up nominating Perham for the Hearts of Gold award. His national recognition, she says, is well deserved.

"Father Perham has mentored every teacher in the department through the years," Manno said. "His enthusiasm for mathematics and his dedication to all students continues to make him one of the finest educators ever in our building.

"At 85 years old," she added, "his very presence in the building challenges all us to be better educators and learners."