My favourite and least favourite math teachers

When I think about a favourite math teacher, one of my university professors comes to mind first, due to their effort to build relationships with students and reframe our perception of math as a discipline. For example, this professor was very dedicated to making time for student questions and one-on-one or small group assistance on content or assignments, such as in office hours. This was tied to their foundational belief that math should be a collaborative discipline, yet often in grade school we are trained to believe it is a solo subject/task. They had thus noticed a hesitancy in students of previous terms to fully utilize office hours, especially if they felt they were intruding upon a prof's time, leading to unanswered questions or leaving the office before fully understanding. The prof noticed this happened if the physical space was not inviting (door pulled up, prof deep in work on their computer) or even due to a misunderstanding of "office hours" as simply referencing a time when a prof can be found in their office. As such, they had reframed this time as "student hours," making it clear it was time they had specifically portioned out to assist us, and left the door open and inviting for students to drop in. 

The precautions the prof took to ensure students were feeling supported in the class and were gaining a feel for math as a collaborative subject was very inspiring to me, even at that time. It made me think about ways I could bring in similar small but impactful details, like using "student hours" or doing more check-ins and group work to get a picture of students' comfort levels with certain topics and model doing math in teams. I believe it is particularly important for being a successful math teacher to have ways for students to reach out and discuss math, rather than treating math as a highly independent subject where confusion can feel isolating, as you wonder if everyone else knows how to do a question except you. 

A math teacher I did not prefer as much was from my time in high school. This was often a surprising opinion amongst friends because on paper this teacher was viewed as "easier" and thus preferred by students. Tests in this class were often exact replicas of study questions, simply with numbers changed, and each class followed a cookie cutter method of lecture, note-packs. and assigned workbook exercises. The issue for me was the ensuing sense that I was not really learning anything deeply or of any importance, nor was there any challenge that engaged you or helped you grow. It felt like rote memorization was what was being evaluated, where each unit had information told to us, without activities or student involvement, that could then be forgotten after the test. This was in contrast to teachers who tried to convey the underlying principles and skills that connect math topics across the term and which allow for applications of math to real-world scenarios to add value or context to the abstract. 

This did not mean the teacher was bad or unkind, but is simply a critique on how this style of teaching and testing reduced math to a flat and boring topic, disconnected from real world skills or concepts. When thinking about my own future classroom, it inspires me to ensure math class includes engaging activities, that challenge students to apply general principles to novel concepts to access a deeper level of understanding and experience math as something you do, not something you are simply told about.