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my senior high math teacher helped save our family home in 1964. Hurricane Dora was bearing down on Jacksonville. We lived on Cedar Creek, which flowed into the St. Johns river. I called him and he helped me through the calculations to determine the slope of the front yard, and to calculate how high to stack the sand bags. He was spot on, and the water did not get into our house.

Math is stupid.






Travis

I was horrible at math in high school I had a teacher who figured I was a lost cause he just let me sit there clueless, didn’t really attempt explain it to me.... at the time kind of funny, but now not so funny.. anyhow best math teacher I ever had my wife she is a math wizard. She helped me get ready for the asvab test and helps me when taking college math classes. My daughter has picked that up from her mom, she has 4.14 GPA in high school.

After 2 semesters of college calculus, I had no idea what it was used for. They didn't teach that. It was just a bunch of limits and stuff that didn't make sense. Years later, I was considering going back for another degree in engineering and I knew I'd have to bone up because I had to take the 3d semester of calc. A friend taught business at our local JC. A book salesman had given him a sample book of business calculus and he gave it to me. Click. Lights on. The book was almost entirely practical examples of calculus in use in the real world. Suddenly it all made sense. Why don't teachers use practical examples of this stuff? Seeing math in action makes a HUGE difference sometimes.

Spot on Rock.

I had an algebra teacher who was incompetent and I damn near flunked. The rest of my math schooling was easy after him.

I had an engineering teacher for a short stint who was a genius teacher. He'd come in early lay out a complex circuit on the board and when we showed up he would give us points on the circuit and list the specific numbers he wanted and leave. It never took less than a whole day to do the analysis and it took the entire class of twenty some students working in concert to get it done. The last day of the class he presented the subject matter of the class and a test which everyone aced. He understood that the basic prep he put us through was the hard part and once that was in place his course work was simple and evident.

I'd have taken any course work he offered on any engineering studies without a question. Out of all the teachers I ever had, he was so far and away ten time any other. What he gave us carried the group through a very difficult year and made the rest easy. He taught us how to derive a method to solve hideously complex problems and know the process involved was taking us to the solution.

I do not even remember his name. Like the rest of the group I was so focused on what the next thing he was going to throw at us would be and how it would connect to the course work.

I absolutely sucked at math. The only time i ever figured it all out was when i was finally allowed to take geometry! Everything fell into place. Aced it!



Algebra, I still feel is the work of Lucifer!!!!

Math was a hoop I jumped through to get to the paper I wanted.

I really do not care for it. I can use it in a sense rudimentary - Figured fractions, use the 3/4/5 rule (yes I know a^2 + b^2 = c^2) etc.

I actually enjoyed Stats in college tho I don't really remember much of it.

Math and higher math especially seems to be one of those things that if you don't use it a lot - you just don't seem to retain it. At least I don't.

I had two math teachers of note, the first was HS geometry. Mr. Aho (real name). He was a 70 s lounge singer and used his stage wardrobe in class, and taught by reading the book in an overly dramatic way that would make William Shatner proud. Didn’t learn much from him. The other wound up getting fired for getting a 17 year old student pregnant and wound up marrying her when she graduated. If you got him talking about sailing, you didn’t have to do math that day. I ran into him later when I was substitute teaching, he’d found a job in another district. These guys led to me having the same thoughts about calculus as Rocky, which is why I’m not an engineer.

Old70

Years back, I looked up some our our old teachers. The "bad", my judgement, teachers left teaching soon after we had them just out of collage. That may have been a blessing for all.

My 7th and 8th grade math teacher was a little old woman, about 5 foot tall, but she was good. Freshman high school algebra teacher was a young single male teacher who put all the cute girls in the front seats, and only taught to them. I was failing, until our neighbor agreed to tutor me, and helped me pass. The rest of high school math teachers were not memorable, and I hated math anyway. College trig was one of the hardest classes I ever had, and I failed it. Took it over, and had a wonderful instructor named Miss McReynolds, who actually took the time to explain it. I passed it that time, but still hate math.

My father was a machinist, and made sure to teach me math before I learned it in school. THe first math teacher I had who knew more about the subject than I did was a chain smoking hippie fella who taught at the local vocational school where I took a drafting class after high school. I learned quite a bit from him.

Math was about the only subject in school I thought I'd ever have a use for. I also liked it because it had steadfast rules, and there was only a right or wrong answer.

My 9th grade math teacher was the fellow who was supposed to teach me algebra. I was hopelessly befuddled from Day One, and went home frustrated to tears that I couldn't figure out how to do my homework. For some reason my dad was home that night instead of out on a oil well, so he sat down with me and tried to make sense of this "new math". (Remember "new math"? It was like Old Math, except more cuddly and made less sense...) Anyways, dad called my math teacher at home and talked about how the man was approaching the subject. They were on the phone a long time as I recall, talking about math and politics and so forth. Then Dad came back to my room and sat me down and in about 10 minutes explained the fundamentals of algebra to me. The light was turned on and never turned off.

When I went back to school the next day it was like a new world had been opened to me. My math teacher continued to teach on the foundation he and my dad had started, and I think to this day he was the best schoolteacher who ever taught me math.

But my best math teacher was my father.

I had a math teacher in hs who was almost deaf...hearing aids and I don't think they worked very well. and was hopeless. Super nice guy but no idea how to teach and didn't know math very well either. Used to have a couple of the girls show him how to do a problem now and then because he couldn't figure it out. I never did learn it. I regret it because if I had gotten the hang of it I could have stayed in college and gotten a hell of a lot better jobs.

High school teachers are required to take a number teaching courses to learn how to teach. Some of them don't get it, though. OTOH, college teachers are hired for their proficiency in the subject. Teaching is an art and they often don't know it. A brilliant mathematician might well be completely unable to get the simplest idea across to his students for lack of teaching skills.

I went to high school in a rural community, 41 students in my class. Math teacher was a pleasant middle aged woman, a great teacher but all business in class. If you were doing athletics there were a lot of times the bus would have to leave early for the away games or meets, causing the jocks to miss class. Mrs. M was fine with that, but you were responsible to get your assignments or tests made up AHEAD of the regular class.

Senior year math was analytical geometry and intro to calculus and she expected a lot out of her students. There was only four of us guys that dared to sign up. It was tough, but we covered a lot of material and learned a lot. Lots of individual time if you needed it.

She gave us 4 dudes our final exam a day before finals were supposed to start. On "finals" day she went over the exam and gave us our grades for the semester, it only took a few minutes. Good-I have a few minutes to study for other classes I had tests in that day!

Wrong! Mrs. M surprised us and says no, we're staying right here! She set out a pie and cookies she had baked for us. A pitcher of sweet tea and a deck of cards. "You guys have worked really hard this year and I'm very proud of you. But for the next 45 minutes we're going to have fun."

And it was fun. We played a game of pitch while she kept our glasses and plates full. College math classes were a breeze for me. I made it a point thank her a few years later.

ah math. had a wonderful algebra teacher. he kept me laughing and having fun the entire time. had a geometry teacher that about sunk my young arse. he lasted one year, and went to sellin' trailers to the soldiers down at ft. benning.

on to junior college, to a stat. teacher that couldn't hardly speak of word of english, having emigrated from korea. a horror story. later, grad. statistics was much easier.

qm (quantitative methods) was not easy, but a definite challenge, and the prof had business world experience, so he made it all seem real enough.

I always had a mental block when it came to math, and had no outstanding teachers on the subject. On the other hand I did some in-depth,post graduate "studies" with a Sociology grad student that used to teach a class I was in...


Suffice it to say I learned a LOT......

That sword cuts the other way too. Education majors are often lacking deep knowledge of the subject area.

If someone aspires to be a HS math teacher then they ought to study the subject at the bachelor's level (at least) as if they were a math major. This should include rigorous, theorem proving courses in linear algebra, higher geometry and advanced calculus along with a good dose of probability and statistics. Once a solid understanding of the core material is achieved then move on to the teaching/classroom methodology, say at the EdM level.

Now we're talking real teachers. All of my English teachers were older or men.

My junior year in HS they hired a new math teacher just out of college and she was hot in my mind (and in other minds too). She always had the nicest smile when I walked into class. Nothing big about the smile that others might notice but it was very noticeable to me. She was actually from a small town about 35 miles from where I lived and went to school. My senior year she was my college prep math teacher and one day when we bumped into each other in a store in my hometown and had a casual conversation, she quietly hinted at some private tutoring if I was interested. Being young and adventuresome, I thought about it for a week maybe, and I bit. Her parents had a cabin about half way between her old home town and mine, so it was very easy to get away for some very private tutoring sessions without being noticed, and she did have a way of teaching that left memories.

After I graduated, she would make occasional weekend trips to where I was going to college (4 hours away) to insure that I hadn't lost any skills. Damn...!! That lasted most of my Freshman year until I started to get close to a girl at college, so I called off the visits. At the time I worried a bit about how she might react in total, but it all went smoothly. She later married some guy a few years older than her and her life moved on.

I suppose I should have gotten counseling at the time, but I just moved on in life with a smile on my face and an A in college calculus. I never took notes during the counseling sessions and I definitely never told anyone about it until years later at a HS class reunion. No one seemed to have had a clue, not even my best friend from HS who thought I just went rabbit hunting by myself a lot on Saturday afternoons.