Typical Texts

The typical texts in math are really only textbooks, especially when it comes to high school. I don't remember using anything other than a textbook for math until I got to college and took some classes up here. The only thing that one of my teachers did that was remotely close to using another text was a song she taught us to remember the equation on how to find x's roots in a quadratic equation. To this day, I still remember that time in class and have never forgotten the song. I plan to use the song to teach my future students. I really liked that experience because it was fun and it put some variety in the day compared to every other day where we would come in, sit down, take notes, and work on homework with the remaining class time. It was a day where everyone was smiling and having fun which isn't a common occurance in math classes! I would say that once I got to Calculus 2 here at the university is when I wasn't able to really understand the text. Math is hard enough to learn from a text, but even harder when your teacher doesn't explain things well. As a teacher, I hope to make every day enjoyable, make the students smile or laugh. If not from the subject matter, then at least from my personality. I hope to show the students that you don't have to be boring to like math! Ordinary, spunky, fun people can enjoy math. I would like to be able to find many texts that would help them in their learning experience to help clear concepts up. Maybe with these other texts, they may think math is more enjoyable and not the worst thing in their lives!

The Power of Art

I wouldn't consider myself a writer in any way. Words don't come to me. Instead I paint my thoughts, words, actions, and emotions. I can express myself more clearly through a painting than words would ever describe. Color is a big part of my life. It's in the clothes I wear, used to be in my make-up, it's in my hair, my personality, my room, and my family. So it probably isn't surprising that I use a lot of bright colors in my paintings. I have one of a sunset, a teary eye, candles fading into the darkness/distance, two pointillism paintings, and several of flowers. My style of painting isn't necessarily sophisticated. They definitely show immaturity in the style of painting, but each gets the point across, at least I feel they do! I have taken a few art classes but none of them really hit the spot for me. I need freedom to paint. Even when the teacher assigns a project that is up to us, it is hard to come up with an idea that the teacher would like. In other words I end up painting to the teachers style and not my own. Another hard thing about art classes is that sometimes I will go a couple months without a good enough idea to paint. These classes end up rushing my thoughts and I feel like the painting isn't any good to show people yet. I find it a lot easier to paint on my terms when my thoughts come on their own. The creativity is definitely more prominent in my paintings when there is freedom.