I teach math to students at a company focused on helping them become confident and proficient in math to enable them to excel in their lives. I just love my work helping kids. One shy student doesn’t feel like he can “do it”, yet I focus my efforts on helping him realize his potential… he is actually quite adept at math as I found, yet he doesn’t realize or acknowledge it. This is the kind of student that I want to work with, and brings joy to me and hopefully to him and his future.
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And if we were living in a sane society, you;d be pulling down at least $75K/year…
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So do you conplete Schrödinger’s thought experiment by flaming the box?
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Math uses the brain differently and can be extremely challenging for a lot of people. Unfortunately, that can leave them feeling as though they are not smart. I actually had an Algebra teacher sing “If I Only Had a Brain” to me in front of the entire class in 7th grade, which was humiliating and just confirmed in my mind that I was stupid. It warms my heart to know that you are out there every day doing the exact opposite, and helping kids see the possibilities within themselves–beautiful!
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Partly it’s how we teach math to people who don’t have an affinity for math. Or have lost it because it wasn’t reached properly. In my case, I suck at plain arithmetic but I can do calculus in my head. And I absolutely adore Dirac Notation.
When learning and teaching physics, I realized that calculus makes everything fall into place, but having to teach physics using algebra just made physics less intuitive. Why? Because algebra alone doesn’t make clear the natural connections. My sister, not a math person, was able to understand arithmetic better when she started teaching very young children math using a system called (I believe) “Math Their Way.”
Presentation matters and not evryone learns the same way.
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