During my senior year in high school, Sally Ride came to my school. She met with all the seniors and talked with us about space travel. There were only 55 students in my class as we were a very small school in north Louisiana. Since I was sitting on the front row, I could easily have reached out my hand and touched her.
I had already decided I wanted to major in Mathematics at Louisiana Tech University. What I hadn't quite decided was whether I wanted to focus on education or NASA. Mathematics is like a second language to me, a puzzle to be solved. When I watched the movie Hidden Figures, I could easily relate to the mathematician Katherine when she is staring at the numbers and knows she remembers a formula and goes to find the book that has that info. I never used a scientific calculator--you know the ones that have the graphing screens and memory function. I just remembered the formulas.
During my time at LA Tech, I chose to focus on education. I feel teaching is what I was born to do.
This is SO interesting! I'm so glad the teaching world has your voice, but I bet it is fun to imagine how different life might have been had you chosen a different path. I can't even imagine having the brain to do a fraction of what you can! I do my "whole number" monthly budget with a calculator. LOL :)
ReplyDeleteI remember doing a report on Sally Ride and dressing up like her for a presentation. That’s amazing you still remember mathematical formulas. It certainly can come in handy as a teacher.
ReplyDelete