Tatiana D. Waterman

Instructor in Science
George S. Heyer, Jr. '48 Teaching Award
Appointed
2004
The Phillips Exeter Academy seal

"Your homework is to make a good future for all." — my fourth-grade teacher

Education

M.S. Brown University

B.S. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Biography

These are the two quotes I think of with gratitude, as I have found a school with a thousand students who can take these on as a challenge and succeed — for the sake of us all, because "The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.” (Edward Gibbon)

I grew up in Greece, 50 miles from Aristotle’s birthplace, and I have happily been unconventional all my life. I attended an American boarding school in Greece, was a foreign college student in Rhode Island, a Yankee in Virginia, and a female in science, teaching at an all-boys school. I intended to major in literature and minor in history, but my adviser said my talent was in math and science: “Couldn’t I see it?”

I see it now. I love physics equally to literature and art. I am thrilled when my students (many of them smarter than I was in high school) understand the detailed intricacies of physics laws; yet my favorite elective is “Science, Technology and Profit in Societies,” as we live in interesting times…

My advisees know that I adore the Milton Mountain School program, am a longtime supporter of the Camphill Foundation, am an undeserving member of the Lamont Poet Committee, give extra credit for memorized poems, insist on reading books on paper, love the ocean, shop at farmers’ markets, and chase down students who did not eat a good breakfast. What they don’t know (until they read this) is that I canoed many of the Adirondack lakes, and was silly enough to not evacuate during hurricanes in Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks in my youth. I am much saner now; the risky things I undertake are Scottish country dancing (no broken bones yet) and cooking locally sourced brunch for my advisees — it usually turns out edible.