“He’s genuinely so passionate about statistics. He’s the Tom Brady of statistics,” Dane Jorgensen (‘24) said of Mr. Maycock, his Honors Statistics teacher. “He knows his stuff, and it’s almost as though he’s speaking in his own language when he’s talking about it… His passion towards the subject inspires the whole class.” For the past two decades, Math Teacher Mr. David Maycock has motivated his students to excel. 

Mr. Maycock leaves an indelible impact on the community — from bringing math competitions to the School, to encouraging students in the many classes that he has taught. He currently teaches Core Math 4 and Honors Statistics and has previously taught other courses including Math, Math 3A and 3B (neither of these exist anymore,) AP Statistics (which is now Honors Statistics,) and Calculus BC. At the end of this year, he will be retiring.

Mr. Maycock reflected, “I’ll miss the aspects of daily life that I’ve enjoyed for the past 22 years [at Bishop’s].” He said that he will miss his colleagues and his students, especially the surprise and delight of guiding them through discoveries. 

He reminiscenced about a student who solved a problem “in a very curious way” making “fundamental mistakes in calculus.” In fact, he said, “the student came back to me and said something to the effect of, ‘Mr. Maycock, my calculator’s broken.’” Yet, Mr. Maycock remembers the student persisting through a “very original way of proving something that can be seen in different ways.” He celebrates this necessary perseverance in his students.

After he retires, he hopes to pursue his hobby of photography — particularly his current work with pelicans. He said, “I have hundreds of photos of pelicans, some of which are quite good, most of which aren’t very good. I’d like to be a better photographer.”

Students will miss seeing his friendly face on campus everyday. To them, he has been an understanding and patient teacher, who made content more accessible. Sofia Holman (‘24), who took Honors Statistics with Mr. Maycock during her sophomore year, said, “My favorite part about him as a teacher was probably how engaging his lessons were. He always had the class super well-planned, and he made statistics fun to learn through his dice rolling games and doing simulations.”

Chair of the Mathematics Department Mrs. Catherine Beamer said, “The increase of interest in statistics and growth of the Honors Statistics class would not have happened without him and his leadership.”

Originally from the United Kingdom, Mr. Maycock has also taught in Japan and Turkey. His international background brings unique ideas and innovations to the Bishop’s campus, from teaching resources, games, math competitions, and his love of professional British football and cricket. 

Mrs. Catherine Beamer has worked with Mr. Maycock for about 14 years. She laughed, “I’m pretty sure he’s the only person on campus who knows all the rules to cricket and can have students playing cricket out on the quad on a reliable basis. He’s taught a number of students how to play cricket.”

Dane recalled seeing Mr. Maycock’s cricket skills in action when he watched a match on the quad during lunch. He said, “Out of nowhere, I see Mr. Maycock and he throws the biggest heater of a ball. And it honestly might’ve been a 100 mile an hour fastball. For a cricket throw, it was amazing. The guy that was hitting it with the paddle, he couldn’t even hit it. I didn’t know that [Mr. Maycock] was that athletic. It was quite marvelous.” 

Mr. Maycock always finds a way to connect with people, whether students or faculty. Math Teacher Mr. David Johnston smiled as he recalled Mr. Maycock’s time here. Besides being colleagues in the math department, they have also been great friends. Mr. Johnston sees Mr. Maycock as, “an amazing resource and as one of [his] best friends. I’ll still be able to avail myself of that in the future, but it’s not like now when I could just walk down to the end of the hall and ask him those questions.” 

Lucy Yuan (‘24) is currently taking Mr. Maycock’s Honors Statistics course, and laughed, saying, “I love Mr. Maycock’s jokes. I think they make statistics much more memorable. For example, we asked him, ‘What percentage do you need on the AP to get a one?’ and he said, ‘You need a pulse.’”

Sofia shared another memory: “I was having a really bad day, and I put my head down on my desk, and on my way out, he was like, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ and he just checked in on me, and during that day, that really meant a lot to me.”

Besides being a compassionate teacher and colleague, Mr. Johnston said of Mr. Maycock, “I think that he is incredibly bright, and he is wonderfully patient. I think he does an amazing job of making the complicated seem simple by virtue of showing a step by step way of approaching challenging problems, and I think he’s an incredibly nice and funny guy, too.” 

Mr. Maycock initially joined Bishop’s somewhat by chance thanks to a teaching fair in Washington D.C. He hopes that his academic and teaching journey can be an inspiration for students. 

He shared that he came from a working class family, and was a first generation college student. He said, “There are some students at Bishop’s who come from families that are not dissimilar to mine and they may be wondering: ‘How can I compete with all these other people who all seem to know about how to apply to these universities, and they have a lot more money than I do, and how will I fare in competition with them?’” Despite having had similar concerns when he was applying to universities in England, he attended university and chose to pursue his love of math and become a teacher. 

He hopes his career “will help [students] realize that whether they come from low class, middle class, [or] high class backgrounds, there’s nothing to stop them having goals and achieving those goals if they really want to.”