Let’s clear something up, I hate math. It’s not that I think math is hard or that I'm bad at it. It’s just that I would rather be stuck in English or history than in math. Now, after saying that, it may strike you as surprising that my mom loves math. Not just loves math, but is actually a math teacher. She has taught eighth grade math for about five years, and she has loved every second of it. One of the most important things she is doing is making learning fun. She tries her hardest to get every student involved and to make sure every student learns. This is what makes teachers like my mom great teachers.
The first thing to understand is that my mom cares. A lot. She cares about me and my sister, but more importantly she cares about her students. She tutors students after school almost every day of the week and then spends her nights grading countless numbers of papers, just so she can figure out who needs extra help. I can’t count the amount of nights she has stayed up worrying about the kids that need a little bit of help. When she isn’t grading at night, she is preparing math problems for early morning review sessions, only to have a few students actually show up at 7:45am. Any “normal” person would not spend their nights grading the papers of students that may not even care, but my mom wouldn’t change her nights for anything.
As her child, I often see all of my mom's emotions. I’ve seen her angry, sad, happy, tired and of course stressed. The weird thing is that when my mom gets home after a long day, there are normally only three emotions I see: tired, stressed and happy. Tired because she still has hundreds of papers to grade. Stressed because she knows that tomorrow she needs to help the kids that need that extra push. Happy because she knows she’s making a difference in student’s lives. She’s empowering students. She’s caring for students. She’s giving students the power of knowledge, but most importantly she’s making learning fun. In all honesty, I have never had a bad teacher. All of my teachers try their hardest to make learning fun and for me, that makes a huge difference in my life. I can say that teachers like this make an impact on student’s lives.
Math isn’t recognized as the most fun subject to learn in school, but my mom puts everything into getting kids to learn. She tries any technique, such as games, or (bad) jokes to get students to enjoy math. Often times she will use me as a Guinea pig to test out a new game she is planning to use to get students involved. It’s that kind of dedication that makes my mom such a great teacher. Now I’m not saying that my mom is the only teacher that puts that type of dedication into getting students to learn. I have had plenty of teachers that make learning fun, and to them I say thank you. There would have been no way that I could have made it through school without those teachers.
I wish I could have gone back and experienced my mom’s class in person. I would have loved to be there to see her passion run through the classroom and her math-loving personality inspiring kids to work their hardest. So, thank you mom, and all of the other hard-working teachers for putting all of your time and effort into making students like me enjoy your class. I know that not every student appreciates the effort teachers, like my mom, put into their class, but I know that teachers are changing lives everyday.
