Math in My Head – Math in My Heart

            For me, Mathematics has ambiguity. There is mathematics in my heart. I really love math, but sometimes my head say no for mathematics. I think mathematics is so complicated. I almost give up in learning mathematics. My own opinion about ambiguity of mathematics is made from my experience in learning mathematics. Start from primary school, I always got high score for mathematics subject. It happened because mathematics at primary school was still simple. I did not get problem in learning mathematics at primary school. I like mathematics enough. In junior high school mathematics subject started to be complicated, but the complicated mean nothing because of the teacher.  She was the most amazing teacher that I have ever seen. She made everything in mathematics become easy to be learnt. She also often gave motivation for students in learning mathematics. It drove me love mathematics more and more.

            In senior high school, I saw the difference. Mathematics subject became more complicated and challenging. Unfortunately, it did not supported by the teacher. Actually he was a clever teacher, but his teaching style made me confuse and difficult in learning math. That was the time when I start to see mathematics as the complicated one. Since that, I did not study mathematics with my heart more. I only pushed my head to learn mathematics without feeling in my heart. I only forced my head to solve the problem for being used to and able to pass national examination well. Finally I could pass national examination well and got satisfy score appropriate with my effort.

            From that experience, I see that mathematics is like a car where the passengers as the students and the driver as the teacher. The passenger will have different experience depends on how and where the driver will drive a car. Different driver will give different experiences for the passenger. It could be fun, boring, challenging or difficult. And its experience will build different opinion of the passenger about the journey. It is like how the students will have different experience and opinion about mathematics depends on teaching style of the teacher.

            These reflections bring me to a decision in my life. That is I need to be mathematics teacher. I do not want to see students who hate mathematics any more just because the teacher cannot give nice experience in learning mathematics. I need to be a teacher to open students’ mind about mathematics and make them enjoy learning mathematics. I have to drive the car carefully to make the passenger feel comfort. I have to drive the car to the nice place with the great experience. I will and I have to.