My main goal in teaching mathematics is to instill more confidence in students in their abilities as a math student. The key words are 'not yet'. Everyone struggles in mathematics from time to time, but knowing where you went wrong, and how to avoid making those same mistakes is essential to building skills. I also like to share how they may encounter math after school. You may not explicitly be asked to graph a parabola, but knowing how parabolas affect how you throw a baseball or a water fountain can help you connect the theory and the world around us.