When I was eleven years old my family and I moved from a small town to an even smaller
town. The town did not even possess a single traffic light. My parents then asked me, “Joseph, do you want to keep going to school or do you want to stay home and be homeschooled?”
I said “homeschooled”- which, I assumed correctly would mean I would get to sleep in.
My mother earnestly tried to homeschool me and my sister for a couple of months then gave up entirely. I had very permissive parents and was allowed to regulate myself when it came to my curfew, my hygiene and my free time. I spent the next four years playing video games, avoiding showing and exploring the abandoned cheese factory.
(Abandoned Cheese Factory, Richmond, Utah)
I was 15 and it turned out I needed to pass Driver’s Ed at the nearest high school if I wanted my license. I was also given the option to take whatever other high school classes I wanted, without the need to worry for credits. I was going to get my GED after all. Having already gotten all the sleep I had wanted, I thought- “why not take some other classes?”. I took a computer class, photography class, creative writing, biology, Latin, and anything else that caught my fancy over the next three years. I dropped whatever classes I wanted, when I wanted. I was given complete autonomy.
I enjoyed high school.
Pointedly, math never caught my fancy. Now, jumping ahead to when I was a 25 year old massage therapist with dreams of becoming a novelist, I decided that my current career path needed an adjustment. I felt confident I could make a good physical therapist, but found out I needed to complete a course of calculus. I went to community college and took remedial math- namely algebra for the very first time. I think I must have absorbed some math knowledge somewhere over the years, because I got through algebra without much of a hitch. Armed with my confidence to take on math, and my enjoyment of my conceptual physics course, I changed majors. I loved talking about what I had learned in physics to anyone who would listen. I was going to have a career in physics.
To get my bachelors in physics, I needed more than just one course in calculus. In the end it took me nine years as a full time student to get my bachelors due to failing so many math courses.
(Online picture of frustrated students)
I became broken multiple times with levels of frustration and despair I had not ever experienced before. I had to find ways to put myself together again. I had to understand how I learned. I become obsessed with education in general. Thinking of ways it could be better, thinking of things I would do differently if I were a teacher.
If I were a teacher.
I’ve always loved learning. I know firsthand the depth of frustration that can come with trying to learn something and being unable to do so. I want to be there to help students, to give them the confidence and resources to get through those times. What brought me to teaching more than anything else was having to fight so hard to learn.
(My Diploma)
So often in the STEM teaching field, many are experts at their craft. They have a harder time understanding student struggles with their content that they so easily understood when they were there age. I believe your perspective will let students know you understand them and that you are here for them. Furthermore, it shows them how you must persevere to get to where you want to be. -Kiley
ReplyDeleteThank you. I do believe it is especially important in STEM fields as well. When I struggled, I would ask fellow class mates for assistance understanding concepts that they had learned but I was struggling with, but very rarely did they understand how to explain any of their own insights.
DeleteThanks for sharing! What an unpredictable road your education and career has led you down. I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say in response, but I’m glad you’ve made it here and can teach your experience to your future students. Especially in science disciplines, “normalizing the struggle” is an important thing to bring to the classroom. Some people are born with innate mathematic talent, but those aren’t the students who we’re teaching for.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. You are right, we don't want to only focus on the kids that understand the lesson with minimal effort from ourselves. I will definitely share with them my struggles when they feel overwhelmed.
DeleteYour pathway to teaching is very uniquely drawn and I appreciate that. I think having that experience will better equip you to understand the goals of your students. I especially love that it took you so long to pass your math class, although I am sure you did not love it. I like that it shows you have failed and understand the feeling and this helps you better work with students who might not do well in school. Understanding why students do not do well and how this makes them feel is so important.
ReplyDeleteHaha, no it wasn't much fun at the time to keep failing. It was a transformative experience though. I am sure there will be qualities as a teacher that I will have to work own, but I hope my background gives me a good foundation to work with.
DeleteI have always wondered about how to be a great teacher and most often have come to see how failing and then trying ways to succeed gives you an insight into the minds of those who find it harder to understand certain concepts. I think it was brave of you and definitely very persistent to keep on going.
ReplyDelete