Ernie Chen has returned to Lick-Wilmerding High School after a year-long break teaching at a study abroad program in France. Chen first started working at LWHS in 2015 and taught Algebra 1, Algebra 2 Accelerated (A2A) and Statistics. This year, he teaches Deductive Geometry, A2A and Precalculus.
photo by Odin Marin
Chen was born and raised in Seattle and has lived on the West Coast for almost his entire life. Overall, Chen considers the entire West Coast to be his home. He described why he loves it so much, explaining, “it’s the things like the weather and the water and the rain. I also just like the sense of newness and spirit because [buildings] are newer here.”
Chen’s greatest passions are traveling and teaching. He has worked as a math teacher for his entire life in several different countries in study abroad programs, at a boarding school in New Jersey and at LWHS. While he loves to travel, he described how he missed the sense of community and simply having other coworkers in the math department while working abroad this past year in France. “It’s fun to be in a place where everyone likes each other and where people choose their job as teachers, as opposed to just falling into the profession. No one is here because they are forced to,” he said.
One thing that makes LWHS special in Chen’s opinion is the sense of community, both among the teachers and the students. “I like to say [working at LWHS] is like a sitcom because watching kids at school is so funny. And sometimes all you can do is laugh.”
Chen lives with his husband and two-year-old son named Yawen Augustus, or Auggie. They love to travel and go camping together. “He’s two years old and has been to 16 countries. It’s crazy. He also has never lived in one place for more than around six months,” Chen said.
Chen’s family occupies much of his free time, but when he does have a little time for himself, he likes to spend it at a CrossFit gym. He likes to go every morning before school, and loves that it gives him another community to be a part of. “I don’t have to think about what I’m being told to do. It’s on the board: this is your workout today. It tells me ‘start now, stop now,’ and I can just turn my brain off.”
Chen also loves listening to podcasts, especially about football.
One of Chen’s special talents is being able to recite the area code and zip code of any city in the United States by demand. If you see him in the halls, don’t be afraid to pick his brain and test his knowledge of the world!
