Math: For some, it’s a fun, engaging subject that people enjoy. For others, it’s a difficult, boring class that you dread at that time of day. We always hear what the students think of this subject, but how do the people who teach us math feel about it themselves?
There’s never just one way to teach, as math is a subject that takes many forms. You find it in everything.
“When I was in my engineering degree, we used calculus and other math forms to do science, and to figure out how much weight a table could hold. You need math to figure out how fast a car can go, or how long it takes for a stoplight to go to another stoplight, it’s all around us,” says Ms. Moritz, a Math 1 and Math 3 teacher.
“Math explains the natural world the best we can. It’s not perfect, because it’s just a model, but it’s everywhere.”
A lot of students dislike math because of its complexity in context and the many forms it takes.
“It seems like a lot of people have a natural ability for math, and you may not, but that doesn’t mean you never will.” Ms. Amoon states.
“I had no math ability when I was in school myself, it just takes practice and giving yourself the time to be good at it.”
Some teachers try to do a lot to help their students with the difficult subject.
Ms. Moritz says, “I try to see where their previous knowledge ends, and then we can work from there. But I don’t think any student is bad at math, they just have stuff they haven’t seen yet.”
Math teachers also may think the subject they teach is hard themselves.
“I would love to sit down and help all 32 of them, but that’s so hard,” Mrs. Meador states. “I’d love to help each one individually, and that gets kind of challenging.”
If you think you’re bad at math, it may be worth your time to talk to your math teacher and see what they have to say. You may relate to their experience in this subject more than you realize.
