-: My students make me excited to come in.
Just looking at their faces
and looking at them having their a-ha moments.
Oh, I never realized that this is why you
carry a one, for example, in place value.
I never realized it's really not a one, it's a ten,
and I never realized that you can take
a larger number from a smaller number.
I just gave an example in class today.
My students, my love of mathematics,
my passion for teaching,
I just get very, my license plate says Doctor Math.
So I'm very excited about mathematics.
I love that the aspect of it,
elementary and secondary,
and I'm happy to have the opportunity
to share that excitement with my students.
The hardest part of teaching, I think,
has not changed very much
in that the hardest part is
helping students realize that they
have the confidence
and they have the ability to do mathematics.
That there is no such thing as
I'm not able to do mathematics
because my parents could never do math,
and it's okay that I can't do it.
Nobody ever says that about literacy.
No parent, that I've ever spoken to,
has said to me, "Well, I can't read,
"so it's okay that my child can't read."
That's not okay for literacy,
and it's not okay for mathematics.
Numeracy is just as important as literacy is,
especially in today's changing world
where we have to be such intelligent consumers
of all the mathematics that's out there,
all the data that's given to us,
that we have to interpret.
I would say so the hardest part of teaching
is helping students build their confidence
that they can do mathematics and be good at it and like it.
Be passionate about it.
I want to change their opinions
of what mathematics is,
or what they think it's supposed to be.