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Appreciating a teacher, loving math

Report from the classroom

Teachers work extremely hard, putting effort into each and every day of school. They show up before students arrive, and stay much longer after students go home, often after the sun goes down. I witness colleagues going above and beyond to make sure that students are not only learning, but safe, happy, listened to and cared for. So many teachers at Prestwood Elementary School work diligently around the clock to be the best they can be. It’s not just the teachers that do this; it’s the entire school staff.

It doesn’t just stop at Prestwood. I have met teachers and staff from various schools and programs in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District and each and every one of them seems to care about the well being of children, and of their families.

When you are a student you don’t always think about how hard teachers work. I didn’t. I really liked a lot of my teachers, but I didn’t consider how much effort they put into class. I didn’t think about the preparation, the testing, the behavioral system, the conferences, the everything.

Now, as a teacher, I know the flip side of education and how challenging and rewarding it can be to teach.
I have started thinking about my past teachers more, and how they have shaped me to be the person I am today. In school, I loved creative writing and I was very athletic, so language arts and P.E. were my specialty.

Math, now that’s a different story. Math was challenging for me, and I would have rather written a poem about math than actually do math.
My parents signed me up with a math tutor. I didn’t want to go. I thought it was extra work, and sitting in another math class after school didn’t exactly seem thrilling for me.
But that’s when I met Monica, my math tutor. She was fun, very smart and made math seem so easy. I got better at math, I went faster with her, I started loving math. Math became awesome, and although I loved writing and playing soccer much more than algebra, it was proof that a good teacher, tutor or any other kind of helpful instructor can provide guidance that makes all the difference in a student’s life.

There are so many other teachers who encourage their students on a daily basis, and in turn, those students do better and succeed. To me, teaching is truly one of the greatest professions in the world.

Now, when my students are stumped on a math problem, I tell them that math is super fun and that they can do anything they put their mind to.
I plan on searching for my math tutor, Monica, to tell her thank you, to tell her I am a teacher, and lastly, to tell her that because of her, I love math.