When I was younger, math had always been my favorite subject. It was mainly because I used things I knew to figure out an answer, and there is almost always only one answer to any math problem, so you could only be right or wrong. Math came easy to me in my younger years.
As I got older, though, I started having more and more problems understanding some of the things my math teacher taught us. Every year, the math we learned became more and more complex. It seemed as if simple math was no longer an option. I would learn one thing with trouble, and almost as soon as I finally got it, we would move on to something else. As soon as that happened, I always wished we would go back to what we learned before, because it had finally become easy.
I remember one year, one or two years ago, my teacher, Ms. Bruggeman was teaching us a particularly confusing topic. I don't quite recall which one exactly it was (there were quite a few), but I remembered how frustrated she was every time I asked a question and she had to answer it the same as before.
She would explain the same concept to me several times before I even began to realize the mistakes I was making and why I didn’t understand what I was doing.
Sometimes, though, I became a little too confident too soon. Occasionally when I felt I understood the most recent math concept, I would start on my homework right away, with confidence, thinking I was going to get an A this time. The next day I would turn it in, pumped for her to grade my paper, only to have those hopes shattered the following day when I saw the big "D" or "F" marking my paper in red.
Occasionally I would stay after school, and she would help me to understand. Those were my favorite times in math, because it was always then that I had a breakthrough and knew I understood what was going on, not just thinking I knew. I guess I have always worked better with one-on-one in math class. Math always was my pain in the butt class. It was a nice feeling to turn my paper in, and get it back with an A- at most. I felt as if I had finally learned something. When I did do well, it was one of the coolest feelings, because like I said, I have always liked math, I just don’t understand it so much anymore.
When you finally get it right, it just dawns on you what you're doing wrong, like a big slap on the forehead. I was always like, "Wow! I'm stupid..." I do admit that I will miss Ms. Bruggeman’s after school help. She always eventually got me to understand a crucial point I was missing. It may be a while before I have another slap-in-the-forehead moment. Maybe next time I’m having trouble with math, she won’t mind taking me back under her wing.
As I got older, though, I started having more and more problems understanding some of the things my math teacher taught us. Every year, the math we learned became more and more complex. It seemed as if simple math was no longer an option. I would learn one thing with trouble, and almost as soon as I finally got it, we would move on to something else. As soon as that happened, I always wished we would go back to what we learned before, because it had finally become easy.
I remember one year, one or two years ago, my teacher, Ms. Bruggeman was teaching us a particularly confusing topic. I don't quite recall which one exactly it was (there were quite a few), but I remembered how frustrated she was every time I asked a question and she had to answer it the same as before.
She would explain the same concept to me several times before I even began to realize the mistakes I was making and why I didn’t understand what I was doing.
Sometimes, though, I became a little too confident too soon. Occasionally when I felt I understood the most recent math concept, I would start on my homework right away, with confidence, thinking I was going to get an A this time. The next day I would turn it in, pumped for her to grade my paper, only to have those hopes shattered the following day when I saw the big "D" or "F" marking my paper in red.
Occasionally I would stay after school, and she would help me to understand. Those were my favorite times in math, because it was always then that I had a breakthrough and knew I understood what was going on, not just thinking I knew. I guess I have always worked better with one-on-one in math class. Math always was my pain in the butt class. It was a nice feeling to turn my paper in, and get it back with an A- at most. I felt as if I had finally learned something. When I did do well, it was one of the coolest feelings, because like I said, I have always liked math, I just don’t understand it so much anymore.
When you finally get it right, it just dawns on you what you're doing wrong, like a big slap on the forehead. I was always like, "Wow! I'm stupid..." I do admit that I will miss Ms. Bruggeman’s after school help. She always eventually got me to understand a crucial point I was missing. It may be a while before I have another slap-in-the-forehead moment. Maybe next time I’m having trouble with math, she won’t mind taking me back under her wing.
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