Math Autobiography

Before I begin my math autobiography I would like to give you all a little visual of my primary and elementary self.  Here I am looking real good on my first day of kindergarten...

and now that you have this visual, I will begin.

Growing up I always remember Mathematics being a huge area of the curriculum and having a strong presence in the classroom.  From kindergarten to the sixth grade, the classroom walls were always adorned with multiplication tables, fractions, charts and graphs, number lines, and so on.  The classrooms also always had a math center of sorts, where there would be a designated table or area with extra worksheets and math related activities and games.  These centers, much like our own Math classroom at the university, had helpful mathematical tools such as the ones, tens, and hundreds blocks, geometric shaped blocks, cubes, prisms, calculators, etc.  I always remember liking using these various tools the most during class instruction.  In terms of formal teaching, many of my primary and elementary teachers would teach a particular topic and then we would work individually in our math workbooks for the rest of the period.  However, the classes I remember best were the ones where we would play math games together as a class, such as math bingo for example. 

When thinking about my best and worst memories of mathematics in primary and elementary school, I can honestly say that I have a lot more good memories than bad.  In fact, I can only think of one negative experience.  It happened in grade two and my teacher was calling on people to stand in front of the class and count by twos, threes, fours, and so on.  I remember being so nervous and afraid of being called on because I hadn't quite yet grasped that whole counting concept yet, but of course I was called on to count by threes.  I remember getting up in front of the class and not saying a word.  Everyone just stared at me waiting for me to start but I just couldn't.  I remember feeling really bad about myself and feeling stupid for not understanding the concept.  Looking back on this experience now as an adult I know that I am still afraid of getting up in front of a class and doing something wrong.  Even though making mistakes is a great way to learn, I still have that little nervous grade two girl inside me who is scared of looking dumb in front of my peers.  For this reason alone I am still not the most comfortable for doing math in front of a group.

For the most part, I was always pretty good at math.  My grades were always excellent, I was asked to help other students in my classes, and I was included in enrichment activities provided by the school for mathematics.   However, even though I had all of this positive reinforcement from my teachers I was never one hundred percent confident at math.  It has always been one of those subjects that can be somewhat intimidating at times.

As for my past teachers, their roles were to get the class engaged in the lesson and feeling enthusiastic about learning math.  They were there to support us and encourage us, all while fostering our love for learning.  However, this was not always the case for every teacher.  Some teachers I had were not very enthusiastic in general, but particularly in math.  The class structure was very repetitive with many of my teachers.  She or he would teach the concept, we would work in our workbooks, they would check our work when finished, and then we could do extra work or read, basically anything to keep us from making any noise.  It was very predictable and not very exciting.  However, there were teachers who did show enthusiasm for the subject.  They would play math games, have little competitions that could be done in groups, and just do things to get us up and out of our desks.  These were the teachers that you could tell had a legitimate passion for not just math, but for teaching in general. 

In terms of assessment, from what I can remember, we were graded primarily on class work such as work sheets and activities, quizzes and tests, and participation.  One of the most important things about our assessment was that we were being graded on the process and steps as opposed to just our final answers.  I specifically remember doing large long division problems where simple adding and subtracting errors were common, but even though your answer got a little messed up along the way, you would always still get plenty of marks from having showing and following the right steps in the process.  

In high school I took the recommended math courses, including the "half math" course to help prepare for Memorial's math placement test. I did rather well in these courses and was even asked to participate in the Tutoring for Tuition program where high school students tutor junior high students in mathematics once a week and receive tuition money in return.  This was a program I found very enjoyable and it helped to spark my interest in becoming a teacher.  

In my first term at Memorial I took Math 1090.  This course required me to work harder at math than I ever had in high school.  My dad is an engineer and is excellent at math, so once a week he would help me and my friends with our weekly math assignments to make sure we were truly understanding the concepts.  This was something that was extremely new to me because math always came so easily as i was growing up, so I am really glad I had my dad there to help.  In the end I did fairly well in the course, receiving a final grade of 75.  The next term I decided to do math 1000, however this didn't last long because I dropped the course about a week and a half into the term.  I found the course super overwhelming, and I felt like that nervous grade two student all over again.  The next year i took Math 1051, but unfortunately I had a terrible professor.  He would constantly make comments that our class was stupid, and that if we were by chance doing well it must have been because we cheated.  This only fueled me to prove him wrong and get an A in his course.  I worked on math almost every night, practicing equations, memorizing formulas, writing almost every practice exam available, and in the end I did prove him wrong and i did receive an A in his course, which has by far been my proudest moment to date in university.  It made me feel confident in my math abilities and remind me that if I put my mind to something I can succeed. 

As I am sure most people can say, math is in our day to day lives, whether it be telling the time, figuring out your change for a Tim's coffee, figuring out budgets for groceries, cooking, etc, math is all around us.  In my own life I have had jobs where math is important such as my first job at Wendy's where I had to count out change and make measurements for the food preparation daily.  It is simple activities like these that are so run of the mill that we can sometimes forget that they are even math related.  It is these activities that effect your life in such a major way without you even realizing.   

Math is a subject that can be very rewarding for students, I know it was for me.  There is simply no greater feeling than having that"ah-ha" moment when you finally understand a concept that was challenging to you,  Even though it was never one of my favorite subjects, and still isn't, I know all the benefits there is to having a solid background in math.  Math is a subject that you will use your whole life, almost everyday.  It is important for us as future teachers to really understand the math we teach and be confident in ourselves.  Students truly do notice and appreciate enthusiasm in their teachers and will feed off this positivity and allow them to be excited about learning math.