Manuela, my mother, earned a college scholarship in 1937. She was not allowed to go to college. In those days young Hispanic ladies were not allowed to go away to college. She stressed that after God and family, education was very important. Despite the fact that we were raised poor, my mother always found a way to pay for all 8 children to have 8 years of private school,Catholic schools. School was very important.
By the time I was 5 I knew I was going to be a teacher. When I went to kindergarten I came home and taught my younger sister everything I learned. I became an aunt when I was 7 and always played school with my nephews and nieces. I have 24 nephews and nieces. Also I now have 50 grandnephews and grandnieces, plenty of students. When I was a 6th grader I began tutoring 2nd and 3rd graders at the Boy's Club in Corpus Christi at the age of 10 years old. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing their attitudes change toward Math. When I was in the 8th grade, the 7th grade teacher was our Math teacher. Her 7th graders were terrible and she just wanted to relax so I taught our Math class for most of the time at the age of 12 and 13. When I was in the 12th grade my teacher wouldn't let me take Advanced Math because she said I already knew everything in it. Later that year she had an operation on her throat and had to use a microphone just to be heard. She asked me to teach her class for her in 1972 at the age of 17.
When I was a college freshman second semester, my first semester Math teacher asked me to grade papers and eventually I became her aide and tutored college algebra students on a regular basis. It was always so enjoyable to see students who were so sure they were going to fail end up with A's and B's. When I worked on my Masters I had the privilege of teaching 3 classes every semester. It was great. The only sad thing was so many students would tell me that they wished they had taken in their freshman year and learned that they could do Math well. They quite often had changed their majors because of their fear of Math. I decided I needed to teach in high school instead of the university level so that I could catch them before they let their fear of Math keep them from doing what they really wanted to do. I was blessed in being able to do what I thoroughly enjoyed and felt that everyone should have that opportunity.
As I started teaching high school, I noticed that a lot of students needed more help than was possible during the regular school day. I began night tutorials. One night tutorials for the Calculus students and another for the rest. One year I provided night tutorials for all the Geometry students in the school. That is when I saw the need for my book, "You Can Do Proofs." So many teachers don't know how to teach how to do proofs. My book takes care of that problem.
In September 1997, after suffering constant sever pain for 5 years, I was convinced by the Medical Board of the Teacher Retirement System that I was no longer able to teach full time. I loved teaching mathematics and so I had to start tutoring Mathematics when my body lets me. That is why I tutor at my home office. I can rest or take extra medication before the students arrive. I cannot tutor more than 2 hours back to back. I have to stand up, stretch, exercise, or even take a nap before I can continue. Sometimes the student's needs do push me into doing more than I should and then I have to take longer to recover. I usually do manage to keep a good balance. I also have to tutor because God told us to share our talents. Teaching, tutoring and Mathematics is my talent.