Math Autobiography

 Hi! My name is Anna Mercer Willingham. I am studying to be an elementary school teacher when I graduate from college. One important aspect of my studies is learning how to best teach mathematic concepts to children. However, there are often negative emotions about math for elementary schoolers, so it is important for me to go back and remember my own memories and experiences with math. 

When thinking about mathematics, I often think of the basic elementary math concepts, like addition and subtraction. I think of feeling frustrated when I could not understand a math concept, but I also remember enjoying math and having fun in math when I felt confident. However, I often only think of math in the context of school. Career choices never come to mind when thinking of math. I usually group math and science together and think of those as separate skills from reading, English, or history. With that comes the idea that when a student is skilled in one area, they dislike the other. Thinking of these subject groups as black and white probably harms students’ view of themselves and their abilities. 

Here is a photo of me (right) in when I was in first grade, about to learn about this math concept:

One of my first memories in mathematics was in my first-grade classroom. We were learning that some number values are greater than or less than other number values. We showed this by using the greater than and less than symbols. I remember enjoying the activity because my teacher explained it as though the symbol was an alligator mouth, and since the alligator was hungry it would choose the higher number to eat. That helped us choose which direction the symbol should face. All of the students would draw teeth inside the symbol to help us remember. I enjoyed doing those problems because they were simple, I understood them, and I thought drawing the teeth was fun. I knew I was doing math because in my mind numbers and math were grouped together. If there had not been numbers, I probably would not have seen it as math.