Staying Focused in the Pursuit of Teaching Math by Brielle

Staying Focused in the Pursuit of Teaching Math by Brielle - April 2024 Scholarship Essay

Focusing on my academic goals starts with offering positive changes in my drive to become a math teacher. Positive change is a healthy start as a new generation of students are arriving into middle school and high school. What I mean by “a new generation of students” is the younger elementary students impacted by COVID-19 and being sent home and then required to attend school virtually in 2020/2021. These students never had the baseline classroom etiquette that all other students received at the impressionable grade school years. What I’m referring to is the basic concepts of sitting in a desk, listening to a teacher, waiting in line, organization of class structure and complying with a schedule (you get the point). Learning from home/on-line, did not in-still these basic skills for this young generation - particularly for math.

State testing revealed that our grade school generation is lacking in math skills. This is the reason why I have a drive to become a math teacher. This fall I’m headed to college to become a teacher specific to math - my goal is to be ready to teach in 5 years. Our COVID grade school students will have arrived to high school by the time I am an accredited high school math teacher. My goal is to elevate the math skills that may have fallen behind in the basics of on-line learning in elementary due to COVID and inadequate learning on-line.

Another aspect of my drive to be a math teacher is it highly probability that these students HATE math by the time they’ve arrived to high school because their basic math foundation was not adequate in with on-line learning. I love helping with students that do not love math and turning them to understanding it. I’m currently working with our IEP (independent educational program) at Mead High School where I’m available to tutor. I even help my teammates on my volleyball team. I’m excited for college and any contributions to help with scholarship money is an investment for a future teacher that is willing to pick up the slack of students that did not gain a healthy foundation of math education due to COVID and on-line learning in their early years.