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The current you doesn’t really think his actions will greatly impact society in some
large way. The current you is me, and that is to say I don’t think my actions will have
that large of an impact. This is not to say that my actions will have no impact at all. It is
more accurate to say that I don’t believe it is truly possible to measure this impact, no
matter how large or small. Additionally, to try to measure it in the first place may just be
an attempt to convince myself that I can achieve some sort of importance. But this is not
Significance is merely how we try to assign meaning to certain events, yet the truth is
often more complex and diluted when we scrutinize and examine it. My focus as an
educator begins not with what impact I will bring about but merely the actions I will
behind my actions? Well let’s begin by trying to break down the truths of what I am'
trying to do and what assumed impacts they may have. I want to try to be a math
teacher and I want to try to teach my students well. For me, this means that I will be
I am winning this game. If my students are not succeeding, then I am failing this game
and need to reflect on what strategies I need to adopt to improve. This also implies I will
use mastery based grading and will set the bar high so I cannot cheat myself in my own
game. And what about the potential impacts of teaching math? Well the immediate
impact is if I succeed at this game, my students will be good at the math I teach them.
Maybe what they learn will help them later in life. Maybe they will never use what they
learn, but the approach to learning will stick with them. Or maybe it really won’t have
However, what if I fail the game and my students do not learn math too well. In
this case, many of them probably leave the class without a solid understanding of the
material. But maybe some lessons on the right approach to learning stick, and later in
life what I taught them does help them out in some sense. Maybe not. But this letter is
not about what assumed impacts my actions will have. This is more about my own
purpose as an educator, what I want to do, and what I hope to accomplish. I want to
teach because I enjoy helping people learn and grow. I dislike when I myself struggle to
learn and become stuck, so I wish to minimize this experience for others. I want to
create a system where everything is streamlined, organized, and built like stepping
stones; a learning experience with resources which allow students to help themselves
as much as possible.
This is my first goal as an educator: to outline and break down every skill in a
curriculum to its core components. Too often, as people who have already learned a
Our own knowledge prevents us from seeing how difficult it was to learn something in
the first place. We forget the mistakes we’d made and the steps in between, which now
to us have become trivial. Too many times have I seen students get stuck or give up in
math because it “doesn’t make sense.” The problem however is not always the students’
inability to understand, but that the idea is not well enough explained. It is up to me as
After I have broken down all the skills into basic components, the next step to
consider is how to present this material. I believe this is the hardest part of my path as
an educator. If our current textbooks accomplished this well, our students would seldom
need teachers for the content alone. However simply reading a textbook is probably not
how most students would want to receive their knowledge. Thus it is my job to create
lessons which engage students’ curiosity. To account for different types of learners,
they must contain low barriers to entry to account for students who may not be the most
adept and high ceilings for students who are ready for more of a challenge. Something I
find potentially valuable is ways for students to assess their own knowledge. Too often a
challenge one faces as a learner is the question, “How do I know I truly understand
what I need to know?” Thus I believe with technology we can accomplish more accurate
games. When you play a game, the game often teaches you the controls, and allows
you an opportunity to test out the controls before moving you on to a next section. The
player must pass an assessment to show they understand what the game wants the
player to know how to do. Similarly I believe we can apply this to how we learn math. If
we have truly broken down our knowledge to its simplest, fundamental form, we can
build it up using guided modules. The assessments will provide a scaffold and can hold
students learning accountable. This allows for measurable growth and progress in
Learning is largely still a social activity. We often learn our best when we have the
opportunity to communicate and share our ideas. However, I believe technology does
not inhibit the social aspect of math, but we need to also rethink where we draw our
inspiration for how to make it a social activity. We only need to look to games like
Runescape, Dota, Tetris, and many others to try and draw elements of what activities
do people find engaging. People play Runescape despite its repetitive nature because
of the feeling of accomplishment from reaching our goals. People play Dota because it
environment. People play Tetris because it challenges your thinking. Interesting to note,
some of these elements are common to learning anything. Thus I believe to incorporate
this into our teaching is what will enrich the process into a more social and interactive
process.
includes lack of thoughtfulness in relating the math to the tool. Tools need to help
people understand the concept behind the math itself and not just process of abstract
operations. Another is that a tool should not only replicate what a teacher can do in
class. Khan Academy, for example, has great ambitions for individualized learning,
Unfortunately, its model focuses on video lectures, whereas students need something
interactive that guides them in their learning and not only feeds them information. Finally,
we need tools more creative than whether or not the final answer is correct. We need to
use our knowledge of the various elements of understanding a concept and be able
conceptualize ways of assessing for each part. This would aid greatly in scaffolding and
differentiating, helping a teacher figure out where exactly a student may need help and
Now, a lot of what I plan to do in education sounds more like curriculum planning.
create a curriculum, a system that better utilizes technology and scaffolds math so that
it is more widely accessible to all students everywhere. I believe that anybody can learn
math if it is explained simply enough and broken down to its very core component
pieces. It does not matter if someone has special needs or not and math is not about
how fast one can learn. Everybody walks similar roads in arriving at the same
imagine such a system, I need the classroom experience of actually working with
students. I need to better understand their needs and how to reach them. What use is a
educator. I need to work with students who may not believe in the value of the math that
I will try to teach. I need to learn how to better communicate and convince students that
educator and a good social just educator and this is because I believe a good educator
is one who already embodies the various elements of social justice within their teaching.
You cannot teach well if you have students who don’t believe in their own ability to
succeed. If you believe that, then I would claim you are not rigorously measuring your
own effectiveness in the right ways. I believe my choice to try and build students who
not only excel, but own the math they learn embodies my decision to be a social justice
educator.
The number one thing I learned from the class on helping students with special
needs is just to be aware and attentive of their existence. I believe that if I keep my
attitude that every student can and should succeed, then I will hopefully seldom fail at
helping any student. Students often need encouragement and support beyond their
confidence is, “Don’t believe in yourself! Believe in me. Believe in the me who believes
in you.” This is not to say that they should stay this way. Along the way I challenge them
in the words of Kobe Bryant, to be a different animal but the same beast. They always
had the capacity all along (they are beasts), but must learn to adapt differently when
they are struggling (different animals). Scaffolding is just as much about guiding
students towards a point of self-agency. Therefore, the goal is to eventually tell the
students, “Believe in yourself. Not in the you who believes in me. Not the me who
my students and someone who puts in the effort to create the opportunity for all
educator and my success will simply make me a good educator. Although I currently
struggle with many elements of teaching I hope that the me that reads this letter has
reached a point where they are proud of what they do and find joy in their work.
Sincerely,
David Liu