My Motivation To Become A Middle And High School Teacher

Meeting the Common Core State Standards, as well as the preparation of students for math related jobs of the 21st century, is a challenge and opportunity for all math teachers. The challenge begins in elementary school, where teachers face students with both math anxiety and the misconception that math is a difficult subject. Today’s teachers are taught to incorporate new teaching strategies which place the student’s mind at ease and teach math by using “real-world” problems. Teachers should follow “eight mathematical practice standards as a guide to good Math instruction” (Everette 1). The following summary will provide an overview of these best practices.

Disturbingly, “nearly one-fifth of high school students and over 50 percent of middle school students are enrolled in math classes whose teachers neither majored or minored in math” (Drew, 2011, p.9). In 2000, 31 percent of high

One of the most essential aspects of the educational process is to know how to motivate students for learning. A challenging part of being a teacher is to know and learn how to motivate students. First of all, a good definition for motivation is as Byrnes quote “Motivation is construct

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

I am Brianna Downer and my goal is to become an elementary school teacher. Becoming a teacher is not something that happens overnight. This is a process where you have to know the requirements, challenges, and also the pros and cons of being a teacher. My goal will be achieved at the end of my journey.

“In 1995, Minnesota fourth graders placed below average for the United States on an international math test” (Ripley, 2013, p. 73). Two years after, Minnesota used international benchmarks to create and update their math standards. In 2007, students from Minnesota were performing as well as students in Japan. One major contributor of the math success story of Minnesota is they made their education system stronger by creating a set of clear and targeted standards. This allowed all students to learn the same content, there was less math objectives so teachers could spend enough time teaching one concept, and teachers only had to follow one set of standards opposed to state and local

[F]or more than a decade, research studies of mathematics education in high-performing countries have concluded that mathematics education in the United States must become substantially more focused and coherent in order to improve mathematics achievement in this country. To deliver on this promise, the mathematics standards are designed to address the problem of a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

During orientation in my second year of Teach for America, my school district presented graphs and figures boasting improved standardized test performance and graduation rates. Teachers began cheering and patting each other on the back. Meanwhile, I squinted at the PowerPoint slide, trying to make sense of a glaring error in the bar graph displayed. If such an obvious mistake was overlooked, how could these results be trusted? For that matter, was the data responsibly collected? Information about student performance was too important to be handled haphazardly. I sensed that the results were not being diligently communicated to us; yet, I was unable to pinpoint how to improve the presentation. In that moment, I knew I needed to learn more statistics. The following spring while still teaching full-time, I took an elementary statistics course. I enjoyed it so much, I decided take more mathematics courses. Finally after years of searching, I found my true love: mathematics and statistics.

To say that "I am extremely passionate about working with children" would be an enormous understatement in regards to my personal experiences, ideologies and self-proclaimed purposes in respects to working in public schools. Being passionate about ones every day line of work is a huge deciding factor for most of us when it comes to “what we want to be when we grow up.” Conversely, it was quite simple for me, you see the rewards of teaching truly lie in the outcomes of one’s teaching. Knowing that from the first day of school, what I do and how I do it will have a domino effect on hundreds of lives throughout my career as an educator. In hopes to not only work in a field that I both admire and aspire to be a part of, I am also driven to one day be that teacher in which my students can look back and say “Miss. Chadwick really motivated me to be a better learner, artist, writer” and hopefully “a better person.”

A Year in the Life of an Elementary School: One School's Experiences in Meeting New Mathematics Standards

When I finished my undergraduate studies, I remember thinking how important it was to find a job that I enjoyed. After moving back in with my parents, we sat down and had a long discussion about my goals and passions in life. Since I was old enough to work, I babysat my siblings and neighborhood children and had always enjoyed working with them. It fascinated my how children were explorers and natural learners from a very young age. With this said, my belief is that a teacher should first and foremost possess the passion to teach. Now the hard part of this is how do know you possess this passion. For myself this realization came after I applied

I have always had a passion for mathematics. Outside of school, I did sudokus, measured my entire house, made graphs, and even created my own problems to explore mathematics. I would do all of my work, including tests, without a calculator just to challenge myself and do more math. As the concepts increased in difficulty, the subject became even more fun for me. The dedication and creativity required in advanced mathematics have only empowered my enthusiasm for mathematics. The problem-solving within mathematics and the love I had for the subject inspired me to become a teacher.

My passion is to not only teach students in a creative and positive way that they are actually learning but also to inspire them to learn and make something great of themselves in their future. The reason being when I was younger I did not take my education that serious. If I would have known then how serious an education was, I feel that I could have accomplished more in middle and high school. After school I wouldn't care about actually learning about my homework. For this reason I want to inspire kids to want to learn at a young age and for them to see that their education and work ethic is very important even at their age. Most importantly I want my future students to want to learn.

My motivation for teaching is to make a difference in a students life. The feeling of teaching a child a lesson, and them understanding it, is a rewarding experience for a teacher. I have babysat for about 6 years, and being around children makes me happy and I love the relationships that I have built with all the kids I have cared for in the past. What really motivated me to go back to school for teaching, was this past summer after having the opportunity to be a camp counselor. Working at the day camp, I formed relationships and bonds throughout the summer, that I am never going to forget about.

My motivation for being a teacher comes from somewhere deep within my heart and soul. I love children. I love the look that comes across their faces when they finally grasp a concept after they have been trying to truly understand it. I had a lot of teachers that made an impact on me and I want to have the same impact on as many children as possible. My teachers installed a love of learning in me. There is no better profession than teaching for those who want to learn. One is learning just as much from their students, if not more, than what they teach. Teaching is rewarding and involves making the world a better place. That is my calling. To change the world, one person at a time, by showing love to each and every person I meet. Weather it be one of my students or one of their parents, I want to be Christ’s light just like my teachers were for me. I want to be the support system that shows each and every one of my students that they can do anything they put their mind to. Not only can they shoot for the stars, but they can shoot far beyond. After all, I was once just a kid from a small farm town that no one knows about. Now I’ve been on 4 mission trips, I travel all around, and I moved half way across the country to chase my dreams. I am here because I was impacted by my high school history teacher/ musical director, Mr. Wittig. He pushed me to chase my dreams and to follow my heart and not to let anything get in my way. I want to share what I have with every child I can,