How two math teachers simplified my life
They taught me more than maths
Throughout high school, we changed math teachers almost every year. It wasn’t until my last year that our latest teacher realized how much me and my fellow student were lagging behind. He spoke to our parents and we started having extra math lessons with him after school.
Math had not always terrified me. In fact, until high school I quite liked the subject. But with our successive teachers failing to notice where we needed support, and we ourselves not being able to point out what the problem precisely was, my confidence had eroded, leaving me to believe that math was difficult.
Then came our last math teacher. He claimed the math exam of the French Baccalauréat was easy.
My eyes widened in astonishment. He placed the exams of previous years before us and we started to exercise. Though it took hard work, we both passed the exam with honours.
My math teacher taught me two valuable hacks :
- find out how those before you have done it
- decide it’s easy (if they could do it, so can you)
This mindset was crucial in helping me throughout my university studies. I got a hold of previous exams, and decided I would not let myself be intimidated by the apparent difficulty. It only looks difficult until you figure it out. Plus, you don’t need to figure everything out to succeed. Somehow I believed teachers know everything about their subject. When I once asked for explanations on some obscure part of a textbook, I realized the teacher’s assistant himself didn’t know. He reassured me that it wasn’t necessary to understand everything, and that was a relief.
- I can succeed without knowing everything
At university, I had the chance of having another exceptional math teacher. She always gave the complete reasoning in her lessons, never assuming we could skip part of the explanation. She gave us maths for dummies. Thanks to her approach, those willing to work could only thrive.
She taught me :
- never assume the other knows even the most basic step
This later helped me when coaching others. You can read about it here.
Though I don’t use much math today anymore, those perspectives my teachers gave me have produced results beyond the realm of maths, and I’m grateful for that.
