- The University , Student
- 06/09/2024
Gert Regterschot also effortlessly explains calculus to a journalist
The man under the stairs helps thousands of students pass their exams
Calculus, the number-one stumbling block at TU/e. If you believe the students that come to sit at Gert Regterschot’s table, that is. Six days a week he teaches the subject under the stairs at Luna and – according to the man himself – he’s helped thousands of students pass basic university courses they were stuck with. Regterschot is convinced he can explain calculus to literally anyone, so a Cursor journalist joined him to test this hypothesis.
In all honesty, I ran it through Google first. ‘What exactly is calculus?’. Uncle Google doesn’t provide much clarity. ‘Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations.’ Hmmm. Right. I briefly considered ordering Calculus for Dummies, but that would be cheating. And Regterschot can apparently explain it to anyone, so that would include me.
Without a beta background and with a healthy dose of tension I join him. The man under the stairs is already waiting for me with pen and paper. Six days a week you can find him there, in the Luna building, across from Spar. “I’d prefer teaching in a normal classroom with a whiteboard again, but the university won’t let me. Be that as it may, being here (the space under the stairs is public, ed.) provides me with a rhythm, with something to hold on to. And it allows me to help a lot of students and researchers. I’ve always enjoyed that.”
How many students he’s helped? A quick calculation suggests it must be thousands and thousands. “Currently I’m helping more than 700 students a year. About 150 of those come for calculus, a major stumbling block for both bachelor’s and pre-master’s students. And I’ve taught for 28 years – without getting paid by TU/e – so you do the math.” Here, he’s not only referring to the number of students he’s helped, but also to the salary he claims he’s still entitled to, which we’ll come back to at the end of this article.
Sin, cos, and tan
Regterschot is well-prepared for teaching this lesson to a social science major. “You may still remember sin, cos, and tan?” I feel a shiver down my spine. I had sworn never to need this again in my life and even back then, I didn’t understand its practical use. I fear I will find out exactly that today. “Yes, that rings a bell,” I tell him. Regterschot grins. “Great. And the Pythagorean Theorem?” This I can still do with my eyes closed, fortunately. I nod my head.
The first lesson mainly consists of repeating concepts that crawled away to the furthest corners of my mind. But the extraordinary thing is that he pays very close attention to where I – or another student – latches on and is immediately able to adapt his explanation accordingly. He is sensitive to what a student can do and knows how to find (or create) a path from there to explain the teaching material they had hitherto been unable to understand.
Exam
After teaching me a follow-up lesson, Regterschot is convinced: I, too, would be able to pass the calculus exam. “That is, if you were to visit me two or three more times and do a few practice exams. Then you’d pass, no doubt in my mind.” It’s a shame that employees can’t register for exams, I say rather sarcastically, because I’m clearly not ready for something like that. Part one, about Pythagoras and sin, cos, and tan, was fairly easy for me to get back into and make sense of. But parts two and three, about differentiating and integrating, are so abstract in terms of formulas that they’d really require spending several hours more on the subject before I’d have a proper grasp.
At the same time, I do get why Regterschot is so convinced I’d manage. It’s typical of him: he believes that anyone can learn anything, as long as they have a good teacher that is able to explain things in a way that aligns with their way of thinking and any prior knowledge they possess. “The highest form of education is not university, but the education you manage to complete.”
Put your calculus knowledge to the test
Want to know if your calculus skills are still up to scratch? Gert Regterschot made some of the exercises he did with the journalist available for this article. Please note their difficulty increases as you progress.
About Gert Regterschot
Regterschot has taught at TU/e for many years and still believes himself to be an employee. TU/e disagrees. Regterschot says he never received a letter of dismissal, TU/e says he did receive it. However, as nobody can show any proof of this, Regterschot keeps fighting for the salary he says he’s still entitled to. Regterschot: “I’m still an employee, so I am entitled to my (overdue) salary.” But in practice, he’s been teaching for free for many years, which gives him financial headaches.
Following a media storm on this topic, a donation campaign was launched for him last year, by students and staff that gratefully accepted his help. “And sometimes I get gift vouchers or something to eat,” says Regterschot. “I have to make do with what I have, which doesn’t include money or a card to use the photocopier, or the possibility to digitize my teaching ideas so more people could benefit from them.”
If you’re a new first-year student who doesn’t know Gert Regterschot yet but you are already dreading calculus or other tough math or physics courses: read the feature on him in NRC (available in Dutch only, unfortunately). And if you’re looking for him: there’s almost a 100 percent chance – pun intended – that you’ll find him under the stairs in the Luna building during office hours (Sunday thru Friday).
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