I'm a high school math teacher in my fabulous hometown of Enid, America. I'm currently teaching Algebra 1, Geometry, and math remediation at Enid High School. That's right. I have teenagers ALL day long, and I love it!
I have a secret though. Yep, a big old secret, and I'm going to let you all in on it. Here goes...
I didn't always want to be a math teacher.
I know. It's shocking. Even worse, I never saw myself exclusively teaching high school. In fact, I'm absolutely certain that at some point I said I would never teach high school. Life certainly has taken me places I never envisioned myself being. Math was always my favorite subject, but teaching math at this level just never was on my "radar" when I was younger. High school math teachers seemed boring. They were those teachers that taught procedures and steps all day long. They graded a ton of papers and always seemed a little nerdy... or a lot nerdy. Don't get me wrong. I loved my math teachers. I was always good at math, and it was consistently one of my favorite classes. I just wasn't going to be that "boring math teacher nerd" when I grew up. Nope. Not me. Wasn't going to happen.
When it came time to pick a career path at the ripe old age of eighteen, I knew that I wanted to be in education. I had a passion for working with children. Most of my experiences until that point had been with young children though. I had grown up babysitting, being a teacher's aide at the private Montessori school where my mom had been the secretary, and working as a staff member at a children's museum. I had also volunteered quite a bit with various children's art and drama programs. I knew I was good with "little" kids. So, logically I decided to major in elementary education. I mean those elementary teachers are FUN. Who wouldn't want to have fun with kids all day long? It sounded great to me!
I got my degree in elementary education from the University of Oklahoma, and I excitedly took my first job in a self-contained sixth grade classroom in Midwest City, Oklahoma. I stayed at the elementary level teaching sixth grade for three years. During that time, I started making some interesting discoveries. The first one was that teaching was HARD. I mean REALLY HARD. I didn't just get to have fun with kids all day long. I had plenty of fun with my students, but there were six subjects I was responsible for planning. Those six subjects had six different sets of standards and learning goals and methodologies and on and on. My second discovery came from this fact. I quickly figured out that there were subjects that I enjoyed planning for and teaching a lot more than others. More than that. There were subjects that I was better at teaching than others. For me, the subject that I got excited about teaching was math.
During my third year of teaching elementary, I knew I was going to have to make a decision about the path of my career. The district I worked in was moving the sixth grade students to the middle school level. Because I had been teaching sixth grade, I was either going to have to move to the middle school level or stay at my elementary and see what grade they would assign me. My two co-workers that were also teaching sixth grade had already decided to stay at the elementary, and they both had seniority over me. I knew if I stayed that they would choose their preferred grade level first, and then I would get what was left. Even scarier was the fact that I could be moved to a different school if there wasn't another position open. I really started thinking about where and what I would be happiest teaching. I had done a lot of work at the district level with curriculum pacing, and I knew that I was passionate about math instruction. So, I took a great big leap of faith and decided to take the math certification test and move to the middle school. It was one of the BEST decisions I have ever made.
I taught middle school math for seven years. The first five of those years were in Midwest City, OK, and the last two were in Norman, OK. During those seven years I taught sixth grade math, sixth grade Pre-AP math, sixth grade co-taught math, sixth grade math remediation, seventh grade math, seventh grade enriched math, seventh grade co-taught math, sixth and seventh grade algebra 1 for high school credit, and eighth grade math remediation. Did you keep up with all of that? I literally taught every level of middle school math there is out there except for an eighth grade on-level course and eighth grade geometry. I really developed a love of pacing curriculum and then finding instruction that actually works to engage students and help them understand the concepts. I focused on the idea that students need to see it to believe it, and they need to work from concrete to abstract.
After teaching middle school for seven years, I made a choice for my family to move back to my hometown of Enid, OK. Along the way, I became a divorced, single mom of two amazing little boys. I wanted my boys to grow up in the community that supported and nurtured me. My family, friends, and my heart were in this little city in northwest Oklahoma. Consequently, I applied for and took a position at Enid High School. I just finished my first year teaching here. I became the high school math teacher that I thought I never wanted to be, and guess what? I AM a little nerdy (or a LOT). My job is NEVER boring! And, I have FUN every day with my students!
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