Wahl, Stacey

Martha "Stacey" Wahl, an educator and self-professed "gadgeter" and "pioneer in hands-on math," was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, in 1916. She received a B.A. from the State university of Iowa in 1938 and an M.A. from Columbia University. She taught high school mathematics for seven years and then mathematics and computer science at Western Connecticut State University, retiring in 1986. Wahl's methods of instruction were considered controversial and met with opposition from her peers.

In retirement, Wahl gave workshops at meetings of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. She holds two patents for educational toys, wrote several professional articles, and created a multi-media kit for teaching mathematics to children. In 1976, she and her husband, John Wahl, published "I Can Count the Petals of a Flower." In 1995 she published her memoirs entitled, "The Flavor of Our Lives," which includes sections on her experiences in Iowa City in the 1940s when John was helping to develop the atom smasher at the university, and on her experiences teaching and raising her family of three children.