In my journey to become a teacher, I am fascinated with how much teaching has changed since I was in elementary school. Perhaps the largest changes I have noticed involve language arts and mathematics. Since mathematics was always a strong skill of mine, I find the changes to this subject the most interesting! Can you remember how you were taught mathematics in school?
Most of my memories of learning mathematics take place in third and fourth grade and high school. In third and fourth grade, I remember focusing on multiplication and long division. I remember a brief explanation regarding repeated addition and repeated subtraction, but then we focused on memorization. We had what felt like tons of worksheets, timed tests, drills, and assignments. In high school, I remember having the best algebra teacher in the world. He used visual aids and thoroughly explained the reasoning behind everything and why it worked. Though we had to memorize formulas, we knew why the formulas worked.
Looking at mathematics instruction now, teachers focus more on reasoning, problem solving, and why something works rather than memorization and drills. This is more beneficial for students because they can apply these skills to other subjects and real life events. I feel that my algebra instructor was a forward thinking teacher and part of the transition between the era of rote memorization and today’s critical thinking and problem solving and I thank goodness I was his student. After all, it is my algebra teacher that made me want to be a middle school math teacher in the first place!
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