Homework Writing - Sept 23

 1. Writing about your favourite and least favourite math teachers -- and why.

Favourite Teacher:

I am quite lucky to have had many great math teachers over the course of my academic career, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why I am attracted to this particular occupation. If I must choose just one, I will focus on my grade 12 Functions teacher. I choose to write about him because he was one of the first math teachers that truly challenged me as a student, but simultaneously provided the support for me to succeed (and he sincerely wanted me to succeed). It was much more difficult to receive high marks in his class compared to the sections run by his colleagues, and so I, along with many other students, was initially upset by what seemed to be an injustice to us who were competing for university entrances and academic awards. However, as time went on, I quickly realized that this teacher pushed his students so that they would understand concepts more deeply, learn to be adaptive and resilient, and become comfortable with being uncomfortable with a novel problem. He also encouraged us keeners to sign-up for math contests, attend after school Math Circles events, and regularly exercise our mathematical minds. I hope to emulate his demanding, yet supportive and encouraging, approach to teaching mathematics in the future.

Least Favourite Teacher:

I probably encountered my least favourite math teacher in my grade 10 year. Most of what I remember of this underwhelming course was routinely doing textbook work, memorizing procedures to solving common problems, and then writing easy tests that left me unengaged in the subject. I didn’t mind it too much at the time, because I was more interested in non-academic pursuits in this year of my life, and an “easy A” was always welcomed. However, in retrospect, I feel as though I, and my classmates, missed out on a lot of great educational opportunities and relational understanding partly due to this teacher’s approach. Reflecting on this experience helps me to reinforce my desire to be an engaging and inspiring math teacher.

2. Writing letters from your future students, ten years from now.  

Student who loved my class:

Dear Mr. Rodrigues,

I just wanted to reach out to you to let you know that I just successfully defended my doctoral thesis in statistics this month, and that I feel grateful for the role that you played in inspiring me to pursue this academic path. You may not remember me, as a fifteen-year-old student sitting in the back of your Grade 10 math class, but I will always remember you as my favourite math teacher. After a few months in your class, for the first time since my early childhood, I found myself excited about a subject in school. I had never thought about the usefulness of math outside of the classroom, and how it could be used as an effective tool to solve important problems that face our society. I am pleased to tell you that the focus of my thesis was on applying stochastic modelling to global climate models. So, after all these years, you were right—I might not need to factor a quadratic everyday, but math can be meaningful if you make it. If you would ever like it, I would be happy to address your classes sometime and share how I use math in my career—just like the guest speakers you brought in when I was your student.

Once again, thank you for your inspiration and the strong foundation that you gave me. I hope we can keep in touch.

Yours truly,

Billy Bob Joe

Student who did not:

Dear Mr. Rodrigues,

You may wonder why I’m writing to you after it has been 10 years since I took your Grade 11 math class. In short, I’m only now coming to terms with how upset I was in that class, and how that experience altered the course of my academic career. I was on the cusp of a decision to either go to university for computer science or to college for a web-developer program. Unfortunately, your class taught me to think of myself as a sub-par mathematician and someone who wouldn’t succeed at the university level. Thankfully, I enjoyed coding enough that I still pursued an advanced diploma at the college level in web-development. Later on, I decided to upgrade to a B.Sc. in computer science on the recommendation of an employer. Once at university, I learned to see math in a totally different and fun way. Math was like a series of puzzles and games to me, and challenges that could be solved; not like the endless stream of pointless algebra that made up your lectures. Thankfully, this experience inspired me to go on and do a masters degree in data science, and I now keep my mathematical mind sharpened with weekly puzzles and pleasure reading. 

So why am I writing this to you? To let you know that the way you teach can change the way a student approaches a subject, sees himself or herself, and ultimately can change a student’s life. I just hope this doesn’t fall on deaf ears.

Sincerely,

Suzie Q