Stacey Backstrom

Mathematics Autobiography
9/9/2015
There are many different experience people have with mathematics. I believe a persons
math perspective all depends on the teachers a student has throughout their schooling. I have had
many different types of teachers as I have been a part of private and public schools. I believe that
is why my experiences with mathematics have been a rollercoaster. Sometimes I really love math
and other times I honestly hate math. This subject can be very fun or very frustrating. I have
experienced both, which will have a great influence on how I teach mathematics in the
classroom.
When I was young I was very slow when it came to doing work and reading. It has
always been a bit of a struggle for me. Sometimes it confuses and frustrates teachers because
they think that I dont understand the work and I dont want help or that I dont use their help.
But, it is not that at all, I just do my work at a slower pace than other students. I remember in
first grade my teacher yelled at me once for taking too long because she thought I wasnt paying
attention and that I was just spacing out instead of doing my work. She would often come up to
me and ask me if I wanted help but I often would say that I didnt. She also would ask me
questions to help me move along, but I never really understood her questions because it took me
too long to comprehend them, which confused me even more. In second grade I had a great
teacher and I was still slower at my work I never felt like I was behind. Im pretty sure that year I
learned long addition, clocks, and money. I had some trouble learning the clocks, but we worked
with the paper clocks a lot and I picked it up.

In third grade I loved my teacher and I knew I was honestly one of her favorite students.
Her class was the most fun class I had. I recall that year we mainly focused on multiplication,
division, and problem solving. Our teacher found many creative ways to show us multiplication
and showed us all of the tricks. I picked up some of the multiplication, but it wasnt until I
learned division that I really understood multiplication. I also had to take a test that private
schools take, similar to the national and statewide tests given out in public schools. We did a lot
of preparation for that as it was the first year we would take hat test.
Fourth grade was a very interesting year because I had a very strict teacher. That year was
the first year I wrote my first 14 page paper. We did a lot of drill work that year. It was very hard
for me because I was slow. We had to do 100 different math problems in a certain amount of
time. At first she let us take more time, but as the year went on we had less and less time. I
believe in the end we ended up only with one minute. The thing I didnt like most about that type
of learning is that she used all types of . Although it was hard, I did end up memorizing my
tables and becoming much faster when it came to doing math work.
I am not sure what I did in fifth grade for mathematics, but I do know that I changed
schools in sixth grade. Sixth grade I ended up starting at a more urban area public school. This
school was much different than the private school I had been at. There were multiple math
teachers per grade with multiple classes. These teachers had great systems set up in their rooms. I
know that my math teacher started teaching us basic algebra, mean, median, mode, and some
geometry. We also had to keep a journal, where we answered a question in the beginning of
every class. That teacher made learning math fun and interactive.

In seventh grade I moved into a whole new district and school. This school was more in a
suburban/ rural area. My teacher in seventh grade was a seasoned teacher. She had been there
for a long time and seemed to already have a pattern she followed each and every year. This
made her class boring because I believe she was bored. I was also bored in the class because I
was put in a lower level than I should have been put in and I knew all of the material that we
were learning. In eighth grade I learned algebra and we used a ton of graphing. This year I didnt
do as well in the class because I was very disorganized. Our teachers required us to have one
binder for all of our classes and at that age I had just thrown all of the paperwork I received in all
of my classes in the front of my binder. Since most of the homework was handouts, I never could
find my assignments and would often forget I even had them. We also had weekly graded
homework that was similar to a quiz. I usually understood most of the material in that class, but I
didnt like having graded homework. To me graded home work is like grading a students
practice. I believe homework is a good way to see if a student understood what they were
learning, but I dont think they should be punished if they didnt.
For the first three years of high school I was very bored in my math classes. Those
classes were usually a guaranteed A for me. Freshman year I learned mean, median, mode and
algebra again. Sophomore year I was taking geometry, I had a very good teacher for that class
and easily picked up on things, but he was older and became very ill towards the end of the year
so I had a substitute for the whole last quarter. The next year that teacher came back and I had
him again for algebra 2. After first semester he was out again in the hospital. It was hard to watch
him in class in pain as well. I then ended up with a substitute for the rest of the year, but it was
very easy. I honestly believe I didnt learn a lot of math those two years as I had substitutes who

let students get away with a lot and moved slower for students who were confused. At the end of
that year our teacher unfortunately died.
My senior year of high school my mom was sick of me being bored in math so she signed
me up to pre calc. and trig which you had to take at the same time. I had a great teacher for trig
who helped us learn, did a lot of fun projects, and made it easy for us to do well which took off a
lot of the pressure. Pre calc for me was very difficult and I partially blame the school for that. I
had to learn three years of math in one year and my teacher was not very easy. I often stayed
after school in her room. I ended up getting a C+ at the end of the year as an overall grade and I
was very proud of myself. That class did teach me a lot about working hard though and the
proper way to get help for a class.
When I came to college I took the required math classes for education my freshman year
with Peter Amos. He is such an amazing teacher who actually taught us how to teach students
different way to teach the math we were learning. I loved both semesters in that class and did
great. After that I was inspired to dual my major with mathematics. None of the concentrations
really spoke out to me and at this point I knew I was pretty good at math and I loved the idea of
teaching it. I used to have dreams of math lessons I could do with my class. I also knew having
math as another major would look really good on a rsum. It took me two semesters to learn
that although I am excited to teach math and I really enjoy the subject that having it as a major
was not for me. I ended up taking the major as a minor instead. I had taken calc I, calc II, and
proofs and reasoning. Calc I and II were very difficult, but I managed to get through them, as I
had a very great teacher. Proofs and reasoning was the class that I knew I couldnt advance
another step ahead. I didnt have a good professor for the class and I didnt understand anything
even after office hours. I also realized in that class how important the terms we learned in math

for our entire lives were. My last math course before this one was statistics. That was a very
great class and I learned a lot. The class went back more to the simple and basic mathematics,
which I could handle.
These experiences are going to shape the way I teach. I have learned from my
experiences that I really enjoyed doing projects and teachers that in general were excited about
math and teaching us to the best of their knowledge. I will defiantly teach different strategies for
doing the same problem, making it easier for my students to learn. I also will understand that
some children arent going to learn in the same order, much like I understood division before
multiplication. I also will try to do some drills in my class; even though they were stressful for
me, they also made me learn. I will try my hardest to make math fun and pressure free. I have
confidence that if a student believes what they are doing is fun they are much more likely to
learn and remember what they learned.