Teacher/Learner

The year before I began teaching, I took the GREs. I wasn't sure what I was going to "do with my life" and to be completely honest, I was bored of my 30 hour a week job. I signed up to have something to do. I enjoyed studying and preparing. My goal was to get a higher math score than english. ELA had been my strong suit. I was an avid reader as a kid. I loved arts and theater. I did well in school, and took honors classes, but I did not see myself as "good at math."

In High School, I took the SATs, did well - better on ELA than math, but happy with my overall score.  I took AP Calc, motivated that I would not have to take math in college if I passed. I got a 3. I got to college, found out I needed one more math class to satisfy the pre-reqs, and took Logic. At least there aren't too many numbers I figured. I changed my major from Psychology to French. I graduated and travelled, and taught in various countries to support my travel habit.

In 2012 I began teaching in NYC. The first time I taught, it was summer school for 5th graders. I taught ELA and Math. When I interviewed for my first full-time teacher job - Special Education Certified - I said enthusiastically I wanted to teach Math. Easier grading I figured - no long essays, and everyone agrees that 2+2 is 4, no troublesome inference needed.

I've taught High School math for the last 6 years. In that time I've overcome the ideas that "I am not good at math" and "I don't like math." I've come to find that I love this subject and deeply believe anyone can "get good" at math. Landmarks along the way were passing the Math CST, and getting perfect scores on College Level Equivalency exams. But in all this time, I have not taken a math class. Until now.

The last time I was a student in math class was in 2006, college Logic. Flash forward to 2018, and I have begun Number Theory. I'm so in love with it. I am bursting about it. I'm waking up with my mind lingering on the problem set I started the day before. I'm talking about it ad nauseam with my husband, family, friends and colleagues. To spare them, I'll try to get some of my enthusiasm here as a Learning Journal of sorts. I've got to get back to my Homework now, so signing off. Stay tuned.


By the way, I didn't meet my goal of getting a higher GRE math score than ELA in 2011. But I'm pretty sure I'd get it now. :)