Christine Blaisdell knows that math matters.

The new Wiscasset High School Algebra I, II and honors teacher uses math skills almost every day — and not just in the classroom. Blaisdell is a pilot, a carpenter, and a lover of numbers who said Wiscasset High School suits her style perfectly.

“When I first walked in here for my interview, I could just feel it,” she said. “All the teachers here are so passionate about what they do, and the kids are great. They're respectful, and they want to be here.

“There's this sense of camaraderie here, where everyone is supportive and everyone is professional. I love it here.”

Blaisdell said that in some of the other schools where she had taught in her 22 years as a teacher, the students were sometimes lackadaisical or destructive to school property: not so in Wiscasset High School.

“There's this comfort in the school when you walk down the halls and there's so much respect,” she said. “The kids here know they're here for a reason.”

Blaisdell had previously taught at Hall-Dale and Greely and even once commuted from Newcastle to Bingham. Blaisdell said she would drive the 100 or so miles up to Bingham on a Sunday, then rent a house from the Bingham superintendent for the week and drive another 35 miles to school.

“So, I'm excited to be just four and a half miles away,” she said.

Blaisdell is a graduate from the University of Maine at Farmington and has a master’s degree in critical thinking from Antioch University Graduate School.

Blaisdell works as a carpenter building houses with her fiancé in Newcastle, so her math skills are often put to good use. She is also the third person in her family to get her pilot's license.

“When I was growing up, my dad, who was probably the best bush pilot in Maine, showed me all of his secret fishing holes,” she said.

Blaisdell said that math is everywhere, and with her roles as a carpenter and pilot she uses it extensively. But what she really wants to pass on to her students is a genuine love of the subject.

“You see kids get frustrated some times, and I'll say 'You can do it, absolutely,' and I believe in them and help them,” she said. “Then there's this moment; it might not be then, it might not be until the end of the school year, but everything clicks. They say 'Oh, now I see. I get it,' and that's a great moment as a teacher. That's a cool feeling.”