Math Autobiography

Week 3: Why do you teach? Why math? How did you get into teaching? What is your drive? 

We have all experienced that conversation, you know where you meet someone and the person asks about your profession. I never know how to respond. I have two answers, a short one and a long one. I feel out the person before giving out my answer.

Short answer: I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. I was always good at math in school. I knew a career that involved numbers and working with people would be the perfect job for me. That's why I am a math teacher. I teach high school, because I enjoyed my high school experience

Longer answer: For years (middle school-junior year of high school), I wanted to go into accounting. Seriously. That was my ambition, and I wanted to ultimately be a CFO. Even though I was always good at math, I never really liked math class. This changed my freshmen year of high school. Ms. B was the best math teacher I ever had until then (she was only surpassed by my mentor/"math mom"). I loved all of my high school math classes. Fast forward to junior year. I lost my grandpa, and my outlook on life changed. I lost my ambition to make money and become a CFO. I signed up for the future educators class my senior year, and that class confirmed my decision to go into teaching. One week after graduating, Ms. T (mentor/"math mom") called my house and asked if I wanted to be her teacher's assistant for a summer math program for incoming freshmen. I'm still working with that summer program to this day, but now as a teacher.

And that's basically a good jist of why I became a high school math teacher. It's been a good journey! :)

Made4Math: Aztecbook

Today's Made4Math is a getting to know your student activity.

Last year, my principal told me that the first day should be about building relationships and getting to know my students. He suggested I have them write a news article about themselves. That was a good idea...but I thought there has to be something else I can do that involves less writing (hello?! math teacher over here). I ended up creating this Aztecbook. Our school mascot is an Aztec.

As you can see, this looks a lot like the now outdated fb profile page. Since most of my students are familiar with fb, they figured out pretty quickly what to do. I gave them markers and crayons. Some used them, others just used pencil. I let them be, and they enjoyed it. We did it the last ten minutes of class for two class periods...

We are still having schedule changes being done at my school (5 weeks into the school year :/ ). I got two new students last week, so once they complete their Aztecbook, I will upload a picture of the class profiles. I think I'll put them along a wall or bulletin board, maybe add butcher paper? Stay tuned.