As far back as I can remember my favorite teachers tended to teach math. Not to say my favorite subject is math, it used to be, before I got to USF and discovered the Creative Writing Program, (You should totally check them out by the way).

In elementary school I had Ms. F, she was known for her silly math puns, I still sing “To be or not to be,” every time I come across a problem labeled “2b.” She was also famous for her production of the American Bandstand the 5^th

In middle school my favorite teacher was Mr. J, he loved having in-depth conversations with my mom, on my math tests, concerning my grade. We’d be asked to take each test home and bring it back to him the next day with a parent signature. My tests always tended to travel back and forth with little scribbles from Mr. J saying things like “Looks like Deja forgot to check her work again,” and responses from my mom saying “I’ve told her over and over again to watch her signs.” It seemed like they’d go back and forth until the next exam came around.

In 7^th grade I had a pretty awful teacher, Mr. B, okay that was mean.. he wasn’t awful, we just didn’t communicate well – translated I never understood anything the man said. I’ll never forget his most honored lesson, guess and check. I hated it. This is when the miscommunication began. You see, I’ve always had very strong feelings about wasting my time. I did not like to repeat work and I did not like to spend hours GUESSING the correct answer to a math problem. I started to hate math. Then, my mom, dear woman, taught me how to make the equation tell me the answer and math and I became friends again.

My senior year of high school I had Ms. S, she taught statistics, but I learned so much more than that from her. She taught me to never put my name on more things than I could handle because I would be responsible for giving 100 percent to everything my name was on and being stretched too thin was not an excuse for mediocre work. I learned to believe in myself.

That my best was all I had to give, and it would always be good enough.

I learned to be honest with myself, I know when I’m really trying my hardest and when I’m just faking it, but only I know the difference. Watching her taught me that anything I said I wanted I could have. She never taught me that it’d be easy, but she did teach me that it’d be possible. In between all of that, she also managed to teach me how to find the probability of a specific dice roll. Totally aced my statistics class in college.