Personal Narrative: Excelling In Math

Excelling in Math I never came kindly to the subject of Math. Math was always about constant rote memorization, full of extensive redundant notes that always found their way stuffed into the folds of my notebook never to be seen again. I held onto this impression the entire duration of ninth grade. However, upon a simple happenstance of acquiring the right math teacher with a different approach to math, I became increasingly aware of my previous errors in thinking. Everything was not as unyielding and tedious as I thought it was. Experiencing a teacher with a powerful new perspective altered my rigid frame of thinking, allowing me to excel in math. At the beginning of ninth grade, I was slowly recovering from clinical depression, a cruel, brooding disorder that makes one feel as if they would be content with drowning in the endless unforgiving abyss of the ocean. Along with this pestering grim recovery came the stress and lingering anxiety of potentially failing a freshman math class. Mr. Albaugh, my ninth grade math teacher, was a fairly young, arrogant, but undoubtedly intelligent math teacher. He would always have some kind of smug retort to a student’s question, and upon the remark, “I do not
When I solve a math problem now, I am questioning everything, always remembering to ask as many questions as possible instead of sitting in a lecture with a blank expression plastered on my face. Rising above my clinical depression and past failures, I have chosen to openly accept all perspectives and integrate them into my learning process. However, this is not to say that I am afraid of failures, for now greet failures with open arms. I sought comfort in knowing that I had risen above my past failures that were haunting me. The fluid progression of this new angle towards learning impelled me to have an open mind in the endless challenge that is