Personal Statement
Mathematics is a very challenging discipline. In addition to it being challenging and demanding, it is also intimidating. Anyone who has ever spent hours working on math problems has learned to respect this area of specialty. Academia, however, is seeing an influx of students who enter each course wondering if that particular course will turn out to be the one that will derail their career dreams. Students are fully aware of the difficult task that lies before them and despite their best efforts they are still not successful. As a result, educators have the daunting task of identifying student's abilities, diagnosing and treating fear, in addition to teaching them the new material.
A major component of my teaching philosophy deals with the fear component. Let me contest that I do not believe that students are lazy or incompetent but rather they are disgruntled and misinformed; that they somehow strayed away due to constant failures in mathematics. Failure can be constructive as long as it is dealt with quickly and by someone who knows the path to success. The problem is that this usually doesn't happen. Students typically work independently and without guidance. Students typically underestimate the time needed to learn the concepts needed; take too many complex courses while juggling a career and a family; but the greatest cause, in my opinion, is fear and anxiety, fear of not knowing where to begin and fear that their best efforts in the study process will still cause them to fail. As a result, students tend to avoid the issue altogether.
As I am nearing my twentieth year as an educator, I am still dealing with this obstacle. There is no simple solution and I certainly will not devalue a student's education. Instead, I have felt that I should simply be honest about the task at hand. We as educators should make it clear that persistence is the key here and that there will be few chances at instant gratification. Mathematics is one of those courses that require a lot of investment in one's time and energy before results are shown.
My convictions on mathematics and education in general are that people will always fear what they do not understand. It is the responsibility of the instructor to reduce that fear by presenting the material in such a way that students can understand and ultimately build confidence. All of these things can be done without compromising the goals of the course. Awareness on the part of the student will help immensely in eliminating the fear of mathematics. It is with this charge that I took up a career in education. I wanted a career that would allow me to assist students in becoming exceptional communicators, logical thinkers, and independent learners. By collaborating with students in their own education, we together can bring about successful mathematics instruction and enlist in students a feeling of pride, enjoyment, and appreciation of mathematics.