Math was always my favourite subject in school. I went to a one room school which included students from kindergarten to grade 3 and all students would be doing the same subject at the same time. It was very easy for the teacher to provide extension work because when you completed your work you would move on to work for the next grade I remember getting a lot of praise for completing my math work quickly and correctly.
The math book for primary school certainly stands out. It was a work book with bright pictures and many interactive lessons. I can vividly recall spending classes cutting out base ten blocks and then gluing them on the next page to correctly display the correct number. I always found math so much fun and loved when it was math time. It wasn’t until I was in grade 3 that I realised I was much different from other students in this regard. This was when math began to get difficult for some students and I felt so frustrated with my group members if they did not understand a concept or a simple multiplication fact. I can also recall my teachers displaying similar emotions when students were expressing difficulties.
In elementary school mathematics was more of a memorization subject. I think I did understand the underlying reasoning to some extent but for the most part had memorized how to complete certain questions by repeating the process. That’s how I remember math class, completing the same type of question over and over. It wasn’t until high school that I remember being challenged by math again. In grade ten my teacher would give me hard math puzzles to complete when I had my work done. Myself and another student in the class would race to see who could solve it first and it was always something different, something that did not contain curriculum content.
It also wasn’t until high school that I saw a passion for math coming from my teachers. There was a statistics half credit course offered as an elective and of course I took it. Our teacher would always make real life connections to the content of the course. He even brought in Proline tickets for us to use for a full month. We discussed odds and probabilities while completing a full class competition to see who could “win” the most money. He would post up our scores every Monday and had a prize for the winner. That activity is still one of the most influential and memorable activities in my school career.
However, one of my worse memories of school also involved math. The one and only time I was ever asked to stay behind after class was by my grade 12 math teacher. We had completed a math test the day before and our school band had just returned from a trip to Toronto. He had asked me to stay behind to tell me how bad I had done on the test and how disappointed he was. I can clearly see the 74% on the test paper now. I felt awful! I remember dreading to tell my parents and finding it hard to return to math class the next day. In hind sight the life experiences that I gained from the band trip were much more valuable and I really wish I hadn’t beat myself up over it. But, I certainly remember working really hard throughout the next unit.
Another elective that I completed in high school was a Pre-Calculus course. It made absolutely no sense to me what so ever as I was completing it but it certainly made Math1000 a lot easier in my first year of university. I had to complete two math courses for my science degree and figured that since I found math so easy I should just complete it as my minor. Little did I realize that it would lead me to my future career. I had full intentions of completing medical school and it wasn’t until I finished my third year of my BioChem degree did I change my mind.
One of the largest differences between math in high school and university was the assessments. Assessments in high school mostly consisted of questions exactly like the millions we had completed in class. Whereas, university assessments contained questions that were new and required techniques or even combinations of techniques learned; you had to fully understand concepts and know how to apply them to novel situations in university. This is when I fully understood the importance of understanding the mathematics as opposed to memorizing it and I try to emphasize this in my teaching every day.
My university education training was in intermediate/secondary with a primary teachable in science and secondary teachable in math. I thought that I would be teaching science in my career until I was awarded my first job in the UK teaching all math. The school that I taught at had a high turnover rate of teachers. It was a school that was known to have many behaviour issues and had recently received a bad review by the local education authorities. Our math department consisted of five full time teachers, three of which were all under 25 years old. Our teaching styles were interactive and fun. We would try new teaching techniques together and experiment with technologies where possible. Since the school was trying to improve its reputation, it awarded funding for materials and professional development in the most recently researched educational ideas.
The three of us stayed teaching there for three consecutive years (which was basically unheard of) allowing us to attain middle management positions in the school. I was awarded the department head of junior high math by my third year which gave me such an amazing experience and ultimately lead to me landing my job here in Newfoundland.
Teaching all junior high math, my biggest challenge here is covering the vast curriculum. We have common exams in all courses I teach, grades 7, 8 and 9 which also adds more pressure. I often feel rushed through more difficult topics and I don’t have the time to reteach or try different methods to teach a topic. The lack of sufficient time here is such a disheartening factor to me because I cannot teach in a manner that I enjoy. I find myself wanting to try different activities with the students but not having the time to do so. In addition, the math curriculum has just undergone yet another change that it will take a few years to completely feel comfortable in knowing what is coming up and to know what topics can be taught a bit quicker allowing for more time for interactive activities in other topics.
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