A favourite math teacher I had was back in Grade 12. He was always in a light-hearted mood, would play basketball with students in the gym at times, and often expanded on topics in the classroom. Looking back at the teachings, he was likely not strictly assigning specific lengths that a topic would take, may even discourse into unrelated tangent stories at times. But he gave great related stories from when he worked in a company, showed us what some concepts could actually be represented in real-world settings, and how they actually cared about some details and invested less time in some aspects in projects. It made topics more relatable and less dull, attracting more focus from students, and invoked more interests.
My least favourite math teacher would be my 5th grade math teacher back in China. Although it was a totally different system, focusing on different goals, and using different methods, he was still outstandingly more strict in classroom discipline than my other teachers in China. Many students were scolded for being noisy including me, and overall the atmosphere was more effective in rejecting interests in math with its dull, feared silence. I hated math for a few years after his class, and overall was not passionate about math for a long time. Looking back, I believe early years need a more encouraging atmosphere to promote interest, instead of overly strict classroom discipline.
Yikang, I really like how you highlighted the contrast between your Grade 12 teacher’s light-hearted, story-driven approach and the strict discipline you experienced earlier in Grade 5. The detail about how real-world stories made math more relatable really shows what stuck with you, and it’s powerful how you’ve recognised that early encouragement matters so much more than fear. That insight into how atmosphere shapes interest in math will be a real strength in your own teaching.
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