I'm a math teacher at Two Rivers Middle School in Nashville, TN (and before that I taught at STEM Prep High School in Nashville and Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View, CA). I worked in high-tech for a while, and that was fine, but I decided I wanted to help the world in a bigger way.
This site is designed to provide useful information to my current students and their parents, and to provide a touchpoint for any former students who want to stay in touch with me.
ABOUT ME
MY PHILOSOPHY
I believe that everyone can be “good at” math, and the most important things I stress to my students are to have a growth mindset and to give their best effort every day. I know that if they do these two things, they will experience success and joy and will grow in confidence in their ability to learn and do math. I also believe that being “good at math” means much more than memorizing formulas and applying procedures. It means recognizing patterns, modeling real-world situations, thinking critically and rigorously, and being able to communicate that thinking in a variety of ways. It means being able to analyze, synthesize and create. I deeply believe that every single one of my students is capable of this and I work to help all of them develop these abilities.
I also believe that schools are not factories, classrooms are not assembly lines, and kids are not robots … one size does not fit all in learning. Students come in with different personalities and experiences, different backgrounds and proficiencies, different strengths and learning styles, and different processes and paces at which they learn. I therefore work to ensure that my classroom provides differentiation and varied approaches so that every student can maximize his or her individual growth.
I also believe that students have many different talents and intelligences – mathematical, linguistic (sometimes in more languages than just English), visual-spatial, musical, artistic, kinesthetic and athletic, interpersonal and emotional. I strive to tap into all of these talents and to connect them with math and with higher-order thinking about math. I believe that when this happens, students not only learn best, they also have fun doing so! (And I believe that math can and should be fun, and that the enjoyment of learning and academic development are intertwined.)
Finally, I believe that education is the best way we have to create opportunity and equity, justice and peace. That’s why I became a teacher. My vision is to make my classroom a safe place where every child feels respected and valued, where every child learns that they CAN be good at math, where every child learns to persevere and strive to do their best, and where every child realizes his or her maximum potential as both a student and a person.
