It's All About The Numbers by Hope

It's All About The Numbers by Hope - October 2016 Scholarship Essay

For what seems like as long as I've been in attending school I've struggled with anything related to numbers and math concepts. I had to work harder, study longer, pay tutors and scour the internet for websites to help me with my homework almost every night in high school. Now that I'm a Freshmen in college I had hoped things would be different and suddenly the light bulb would come on for me. I had high hopes I would be able to fly through my math classes without the need for all these extra resources to help me with making the grade. As I sit here typing this essay I am fresh out of a tutoring session for my Math 166, and those all too familiar feelings of worry, stress and fear of failure are creeping back into my head because once again I am lost in the forever complicated words of numbers and madness.
If the roles could be reversed and I could become the educator instead of the student, I most definitely would become a math teacher. I think it would be so utterly fascinating to finally be able to unlock this world that has been so closed off to me; to really be able to understand those illusive concepts like Algebra and Geometry, but there is a bigger, more important reason why I would want to be a math teacher. For years I have longed to be in a math class with a teacher who really understood me as a student. To most adults I look like this over achieving learner, you know the type: top 10% of my class, a National Honor Society member, a hard worker, a teacher's dream. Yet, not one of my teachers during the 12 years I was in public school really comprehended how much I was struggling to learn this most difficult subject. If I was a math teacher I know I would be able to discover those learners just like me who are sitting in a math class each and every day, just praying for it to be over, yet knowing more excruciating hours and hours of studying awaited me after school. I would be able to identify those students who were too embarrassed to ask for help, too fearful to be seen as dumb in front of their peers, but who are silently struggling to comprehend this mandatory subject they call Math. If I could switch roles and become a teacher instead of a student, I would most definitely choose to be a Math teacher, because I know I could help the struggling learner just like me.