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I attended Cabot Academy in Western Bay, NL from Kindergarten to Grade 9. I am currently doing my observation days here with the same teachers (for the most part) that taught me. I loved the school growing up, and continued to tutor there from Grade 10 to 12. I feel very honored to be placed at Cabot Academy and I am learning lots from my former teachers! :)
Growing up I absolutely loved Math and that continues today. It was a subject I was always good at and I can remember my teachers encouraging me to help my classmates when they were busy with other students. I always felt completely comfortable with until I completed some courses here at Memorial. Though I may have had a hard time with some of the university Math, I still love the subject!
Though I don't remember much about Math in Kindergarten, Grade 1 or 2, I can remember it being a huge part of our curriculum from Grade 3 onward. We had Math every single day and we had tests after every unit. If some units were longer, it would be broken up in to two sections and we would have a test on each section. In Grade 3, we had multiplication tables on the walls and one inside our exercise book and we were tested on them frequently. In Grade 4, we used a burgundy book but I cannot for the life of me remember the title of these books. I'm thinking that the books for Grades 5 and 6 were blue and green but I could be totally wrong. I can remember posters with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division signs on them and a brief description of each of them in one of the Grades, but I'm not sure exactly which one it was.
I can honestly say I have had great experiences with Math in Primary and Elementary grades. My Grade 3 teacher would sit us all on the floor at the front of the room in a circle and play "Brain Quest" with us. This was a question and answer game that she would put us in small groups for and I remember a fair component of it being Math. Our class really enjoyed this game and it enhanced our Math skills. In Grade 3 I can also remember my teacher assigning me problems from the Grade 4 text, and my teachers continued to challenge me in Math throughout the grades. I had excellent teachers who provided a Math-rich classroom for us, so I don't exactly have any "bad" memories regarding the subject. Because of this, I believe that my teachers had a passion for Math as well which has most likely influenced me in a way. I truly hope that I can be as good of a Math teacher as they were.
In high school, I took Advanced Math and loved every minute of it. I was always encouraged in school to do Math in university, so when I had to complete a focus area, I knew right away it would be in Math. I have completed Math 1050, 1090, 2050, 2320, 3240 and Stats 2500 in university.
I believe Math is a subject you use everyday and is essential for this reason. I frequently use Math at work, since I work at a convenience store. I use it when I am shopping to calculate my total before I get to the cashier. We all use Math frequently throughout the day - counting money, estimating the time it takes to get to and from school, making supper with different amounts of things, and so on.
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