Soon all the seniors are going to be posting on their blogs about what they plan on doing after high school. For me, I am asked all the time "did you really want to be a teacher when you went to college?" I always say "Yes!" and tell them I decided back when I was a senior in high school. I knew I wanted to stay in an education setting, but at the time wasn't sure if I wanted to teach math or art. I settled on math mainly (at the time) because I wanted to have a secure job, and decided art would be harder to find.
Fortunately, I liked math in high school, but ended up loving it in college. The first math class I remember truly loving was non-euclidean geometry, with all of it's inherent 'brokenness' compared to 'normal' math. The major take-away from the course was the fact that math truly does not have a single 'right' or 'wrong' answer and can be as subjective as any other subject. In the class, we made triangles out of curved lines, angles that visually had clear 'space' but took up 0 degrees, and made polygons that had angle sums of 0.
Fortunately, I liked math in high school, but ended up loving it in college. The first math class I remember truly loving was non-euclidean geometry, with all of it's inherent 'brokenness' compared to 'normal' math. The major take-away from the course was the fact that math truly does not have a single 'right' or 'wrong' answer and can be as subjective as any other subject. In the class, we made triangles out of curved lines, angles that visually had clear 'space' but took up 0 degrees, and made polygons that had angle sums of 0.
All of this is possible once you change the notion of what it means for lines to be 'parallel' or even what you consider a line. Later in other classes we started talking about how easy infinity is to take for granted, yet how crazy infinity really is, in addition to things being infinitely small, yet not zero or some infinities being bigger than other infinities.
Therefore, when I decided I wanted to be a math teacher, I knew I wanted to share this insight with students who otherwise would never be exposed to things like this (since they are not part of a normal math curriculum). I also want to demonstrate to students that math isn't only a set of rules that numbers play by, but a set of rules that we create. It is just as imaginative as anything else, as long as you are open to it. Some days I don't quite succeed in this, but my hope is overall my students leave Key with an appreciation of math in addition to other classes they naturally like.
Therefore, when I decided I wanted to be a math teacher, I knew I wanted to share this insight with students who otherwise would never be exposed to things like this (since they are not part of a normal math curriculum). I also want to demonstrate to students that math isn't only a set of rules that numbers play by, but a set of rules that we create. It is just as imaginative as anything else, as long as you are open to it. Some days I don't quite succeed in this, but my hope is overall my students leave Key with an appreciation of math in addition to other classes they naturally like.