Two years ago, Mr. Joe Arbizu was named Armijo’s Teacher of the year, but he did not let that honor slow him down from doing his best work day after day. Over the years, he admitted that he’s had a couple of favorite students, but every year that number has the opportunity to grow.

Mr. Arbizu has been teaching math for almost 13 years, but before he became a teacher he worked with numbers. He was an actuarial and sold insurance.

He grew up in Northern California, graduating from St. Patrick’s High School in Vallejo before going to UC Davis and Touro University. He decided to pursue a teaching credential because he had an encounter with a customer. He was trying to solve a problem where a lot of math was involved and the customer said, “Just do whatever to
fix the problem. I trust you,” although the customer had only known Mr. Arbizu for an hour. At that moment, he knew that being a math teacher would be a way to teach people to be responsible enough to do the math on their own and not trust virtual strangers with their hard-earned money.

There are lots of things Mr. Arbizu likes to do in his spare time. Among those are playing video games, especially BioShock, God of War, Halo 1 and 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, he actually serves as the adviser for the Board Game Club at Armijo, which meets in his classroom B-2 on Thursdays at lunch.