Math Autobiography

My name is Amanda Holman. When I was growing up my father was in the military and we traveled…a lot. Over the course of my elementary school years I went to nine different schools. In grades 1, 3, and 5 I was in two different classes. Besides the obviously transitions like new teacher, school, and friends I also had to transition into a new curriculum. In third grade we were going to learn our multiplication facts in the spring, I moved. My new class was almost finished with the 11’s times tables when I started school there. I was always ahead in my class, now I found myself behind of everyone else and confused. The teacher tried help me by sticking me with my new peers to help me to review and memorize my facts. Kids can be cruel especially new ones you don’t know. As my self confidence went down so did my grades. I remember a parent teacher conference in the spring of third grade the teacher was talking about some concepts that their class was learning was a little difficult for me to keep up with and it might have been due to my old class. I knew that wasn’t true I could have tried I just didn’t want to. This was the start of the despise I held for math.
In Jr. High I stayed in the same school for all three years unfortunately so did my teacher. My parents put my in a private school. The Jr. High had three teachers one taught reading and writing, another taught history and religion, and another taught math and science….for all three years. The class was not divided into ability level so he taught to the middle. Looking back now I honestly I don’t think I really learned anything in Jr. High math.
It wasn’t until I reached high school that I really realized I was behind. I was an over achiever and of course took all honors classes. I was mad at my parents when I found out that I could have taken algebra I in Jr. High for high school credit. School was easy, math was hard. I struggled through it. I knew I had a hard time in math and wanted to get out of the honor classes but my parents and councilors said if I wanted to get into a good college I had to stick with it. I left my high school and finished my last two years at the community college high school- west, took my two required math classes for elementary education. I knew I didn’t have to take anymore math classes until now.