Personal Statement: Pursuing A Degree In Education

Pursuing a degree in education, allows us to be lifelong learners. Whether it be learning about different classroom management strategies, effective instructional strategies, how to manage different types of behaviors, and how to develop relationships with your students. Being a teacher, also involves learning about yourself and your students in order to develop meaningful and engaging lessons that will allow for students to retain information and then later recall upon their knowledge. Some individuals decide to become teachers once they are older, but others know they want to become an educator from an early age. The elementary school years are hard to remember because it has been over a decade since I attended the younger grades, however

Mathematics became my favorite subject and I began taking AP courses in math. The different math courses interested me because they caused me to think critically. Whenever I could not solve a problem, I would try different strategies until I was able to find the solution. In order to understand math, I did not need to see the connection to the real world because I could see the patterns and the logical sequences that are involved in mathematics. Although my math courses involved the teacher lecturing and showing PowerPoint slides with examples while sitting in rows, I was able to easily learn new mathematical concepts. However, this was not the case for many of my classmates. Often times I would hear my peers complaining about how math was difficult and it was their worst subject and I could not understand why that was the case for them. However, in my senior year of high school I realized that my peers did not easily learn math like me because it wasn’t being taught to them in a way that kept them engaged. Since students learn differently, then just because I was able to grasp the concepts during class, other peers may have needed more time or they may have need for the lesson to be taught differently so they can understand the lesson. Therefore, when I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to attend college to become a math teacher because I want to teach students so that all of them comprehend the different

Many times students ask when they are really going to use the math strategies in real life because they can’t connect the lesson to the real world. I hope to show them that we use math in our everyday lives like when we are driving 50 miles an hour on the road and we want to figure out how long it will take us to get to our destination that is 25 miles away. Also, when we go shopping, we use math when we want to figure out what the final cost of a $20 shirt will be if there is a 10% off coupon. When they go out to eat students will be able to know how much a 15% tip will be if their total was $80.

Furthermore, many students do not find math interesting just because of the way a teacher has her classroom set up. Growing up, I remember all my math classrooms in the middle grades were set up in rows. There was no opportunity for collaborative learning with my classmates. In my classroom, I want my classroom layout to allow for a variety of learning types of flourish. My classroom will be set up in a way that allows for collaborative learning, but also allows for independent practice for students that learn best by working on their