Mr. Clarkson enjoys teaching mathematics in a friendly and jovial style by forming friendly relationships with students, families, faculty, and staff. A look into Mr. Clarkson’s background allows one to better understand him.
Although born in Council, Idaho Mr. C was raised as a child in Tamarack, McCall, and Meadows. He attended Beaumont school, New Meadows, through third grade and moved with the school to the new Meadows Valley School for fourth grade in 1969. After a few months in Logan, Utah, Mr. C’s family settled in Hayden Lake, Idaho where he attended Dalton Garden’s Elementary School for fifth and sixth grades and Coeur D’ Alene Jr. High, Mid High, and High School. Clarkson attended and graduated from Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho. He was a youth pastor in Nampa and Meridian for several years.
During his high school and college years Mr. Clarkson worked with his father and later with a number of other contractors building houses. Clarkson became a primary construction foreman. He later worked in a commercial fixtures shop as a computer navigated table saw and router operator. He attributes much of his mathematical abilities to these experiences.
Clarkson married his four year college sweetheart in 1985. They have two daughters, now both married adults. The Clarksons moved to Hillsboro, Oregon in 1990 in order that Mr. C could attend Western Evangelical Seminary. He graduated in 1995 and the young family moved to San Jose, Costa Rica, for intensive Spanish language studies. Following the one year study the Clarksons moved to La Paz, Bolivia where Mr. C taught pastoral studies including Hermeneutics, Homiletics, History, Theology, and Languages — Greek, Hebrew, and English. He was also organizational bookkeeper during these years and programmed the multi-currency system for greatest efficiency using spreadsheets and macros.
After returning to the USA in 2002 the Clarksons settled in Dodge City, Kansas where Mr. C pastored the Evangelical Friends Church as well as taught Missions for one year at Barclay College in nearby Haviland, Kansas. Clarkson also worked as a substitute teacher in Dodge City, and Spearville schools for two years. Mrs. Clarkson taught Art at Spearville High School. Clarksons then spent three years in League City, Texas where Mr. C served as director of Instituto ALMA, a pastoral studies program for Spanish speaking leaders.
Clarksons returned to Idaho in 2011 where both have since been teaching. Mr. C substituted in Nampa, Vallivue, Caldwell, Middeton, and Kuna districts until receiving his teaching certificate. He studied independently until passing the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence examinations for teacher certification with a 6-12 Mathematics endorsement. Clarkson taught during 2014-2015 at Nampa High School. He taught 6-12 Math at Cambridge, Idaho for the 2016-2017 school year. Since then he has taught STEAM Computer Systems at Sage Valley Middle School, Vallivue District, Nampa and Caldwell Idaho. His SVMS faculty website may be found by clicking this line.
The Clarksons enjoy camping, travelling when possible, stream fishing, mushrooming, and huckleberry picking. Mr. C also does some hunting and lots of computer maintenance and web page development.
Clarkson teaches mathematics through hands on projects such as a virtual finance classroom project, house design projects, and other life application projects.