Our childhood experiences alone don’t make us who we are, but they play a role in who we become. They influence our decisions about who we want to be, how we want to spend our lives and sometimes more importantly how we don’t want to live them.
Childhood experiences definitely played a role in Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Curtis Kunkel’s and Laboratory Instructor of Mathematics and Statistics Barbara (Gray) Kunkel’s decision to go into teaching.
Barbara Gray grew up in Bay City, Texas with her mom and dad. Her mother was a second grade teacher who is retired now after teaching for 42 years. Her father was a high school math teacher and is still teaching after 46 years. She grew up with her parents being off all majors holidays, two weeks at Christmas and all summer.
Deciding to become a teacher was definitely not a decision that was made solely on the merits of the lifestyle she grew up with, but it definitely played a role in her decision.
“Part of it is the lifestyle idea, and part of it is you do what you’re good at; I’m good at working with people and explaining things and that’s teaching,” Barbara Kunkel said.
Curtis Kunkel grew up quite a distance away from Texas and with quite a different childhood experience. He was born in Worthington, Minn. He lived in Adrian, Minn., until 2nd grade, and then spent the remainder of his childhood in Luverne, Minn., where he lived with his mom, dad and sister.
His mother has held various positions at the same bank for the last 25 years, some of them requiring evening hours. His father who is currently working as a plumber, worked as a grounds superintendent at a local country club in the summers and was the manager of a local ice rink arena in the winters, sometimes putting in as many as 80 hours-a-week during Kunkel’s childhood.
Watching his family continually struggle to spend quality time together, especially after the last family vacation they ever tried to take was brought to an immediate halt by his father’s job just as they arrived at their destination was not solely responsible for his decision to become a teacher, but it definitely played a role in his decision how not to live his life.
“I said, ‘I’m going to go to school, and do [well]. So, I don’t have to do that,’” Kunkel said.
And that’s exactly what he did. During his college years he was involved in pretty much everything. He played a semester on the school golf team, was the co-chair of the university’s concert committee, which brought live music and entertainment to campus. He tutored math, and played a variety of intramural and pick-up sports, such as football and ultimate frisbee.
He earned Bachelor degrees in Math and Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, Morris. While there he conducted research dealing with Ramsey Theory for his senior capstone projects. Ramsey Theory is a party problem that asks, “What is the minimum number of people that you can invite to a party, so that you are guaranteed that no matter how you arrange the tables, if you have tables of five, that every table has at least someone that knows everyone else at that table or no one knows anyone else at that table.”
He chose the number five because it was the smallest symmetrical problem that had not been solved already. He even created a computer program to try and calculate an answer. In the end, his findings were not optimum, but they were better than any that had been previously found at that time. He went on to present his findings at the 2003 Joint Mathematics Meetings and caught the attention of Baylor University.
At Baylor, his life really began to take shape in many ways. He earned a M.S. in Mathematics in 2005, and, in 2007, he earned a Ph.D. in
Mathematics. It was during this time that he started
teaching. He taught for three years while attending school. Another very significant event happened to him his very first
semester at Baylor; he met Barbara Gray.
Gray earned Bachelor degrees in Math and Biology, with teaching certification in both areas, from Wayland Baptist University. While there, she was heavily involved in the Baptist Student Ministry. This included being a puppeteer and a clown. They put on full puppet shows both on campus and in the community. Abigail, her puppet, was red-headed, pig-tailed almost but not quite Pippi Longstocking.
“It was fun. My puppet still lives in the attic,” Kunkel said.
Her clown troupe started out small, with only a group of five, but by the time she graduated they had grown to a troupe of 15. The troupe was invited to participate in all of the campus functions; one time they even made balloon boutonnieres for men and balloon wrist corsages for women at a very fancy alumni reception.
Although she currently lacks two classes, Kunkel plans to earn her M.S. in Mathematics from Texas A&M this summer. She originally began her graduate work at Baylor in 2003, where she met Curtis Kunkel for the very first time.
The couple married on November 25, 2005 and after Dr. Kunkel’s graduation in 2007 moved to Martin. She worked in the Student Success Center her first year, and since then, she has been teaching nine sections of Math 100 and Math 110 Labs per semester.
Her childhood experience of being raised by teachers has also had an influence on the approach that she takes with students and her philosophy towards learning.
“There’s the second grade influence, ‘It’s supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to hurt. It’s not supposed to be stressful.’ Then there’s the high school influence, ‘There’s a bar that you are supposed to get to. You have to learn something and change something in order to succeed,” Kunkel said.
She applies this same philosophy when giving advice to students.
“Earning your degree is hard work, be proud of each success, and let any failures make you stronger,” she said.
Student success and his ability to help with that success are also important to Dr. Kunkel, who is now in his 7th year of teaching at UTM.
“Having students come back from graduate school and tell me that it was my class that prepared them best for their current courses is probably the best feeling a teacher of any level could hope for,” he said. “I want my students to succeed in everything that they do or attempt, and I just hope that the little bit of Kunkel-isms they put up with in my classes helps them to succeed.”
Kunkel’s childhood experiences taught him more than how he didn’t want to live his life; they taught him to work hard for what you want. This can be seen in his work ethic and the advice he gives to students.
“Manage your time well, treat school like a job, and you will have no troubles in your classes. Neither of my parents did more than a few semesters towards Associate degrees. So, I understand the challenges many of you face … but with a little hard work and dedication, anything is possible,” he said.
When the couple takes a little time away from their students, they try to catch up on their hobbies. He might be found reading or playing either video games or disc golf. She might be found cooking, sewing, crafting, reading or maybe even watching crime dramas. But it’s pretty much a given that if they’re not teaching they will be with their daughter. Raven Olivia Kunkel who was born on March 23, 2013.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Raven Kunkel, how her childhood experiences will influence the decisions she will make. Will she decide to become a teacher like her parents or choose to do something else with her life? If she chooses to become a teacher, will UTM play a role in her future? These questions can only be answered by Raven many years in the future, because our childhood experiences alone don’t make us who we are, they only play a role in who we choose to become.
