Math Teachers: Cut Them Some Slack!

    As a student you sit there day after day hating this class. You groan and complain as soon as your teacher finishes attendance and begins a lesson. You find yourself counting down the minutes until the class is over and thinking of anything but the subject presented in front of you.

Sound familiar? Yeah, this was my middle school and high school experiences with math classes. I know for a fact that many students share the same feelings.

What students don’t realize is that math teachers do not have it easy, and this behavior does not make their job any easier. As a teacher, you are required to do just that Teach. However, the job of a math teacher is far more difficult than teaching other subjects, in my opinion.

 

A math teacher carries a lot of responsibility:

·         They must be able to get their class engaged into the topic or discussion in class, which most times is already labeled “BORING” by their students.

·         They must adapt their teaching style to meet the needs of many different types of learners. (For example, some students are visual learners, while others are not.)

·         They must be able to carefully explain their topics so that the students will somewhat understand the strange figures, letters, and numbers on the board in front of them.

·         They must pace themselves because going too fast in class will leave everyone frustrated and confused, but going too slow in class will cause the class to lose attentiveness.

·         It is necessary that they will be able to answer any question thrown their way. (A teacher who can’t answer questions and just teaches out of a book is no good!)

·         Math teachers must remain enthusiastic about their subject because the students feed off of this.

·         Among other things!

Math teachers are given a year or semester (depending on the class); to convince their students that math is not something to fear and can actually be interesting or easier to understand than they had anticipated.

Math teachers, being persistent beings, spend their days (and even years!)dedicated to teaching students about math and its concepts. I give math teachers a lot of credit because they did not pick the easiest profession to enter.

So remember, next time you are about to groan at the start of yet another lesson in your math class, that your teacher is a hero! They’re dedicating their life to teaching people just like you and I all about math and how it works. They are interpreting a foreign language right before your eyes and are even showing you things about the world around you that you never knew! So do not hesitate to thank your math teachers, they are very brave souls.