I am a Mathematics teacher at Shoalhaven High School. I feel I am a so,so teacher, but am quite passionate about maths and technology as "tools" that can enrich an individuals life. Maths to me is about asking questions, finding patterns and solving problems. However, I struggle sometimes to find the appropriate problem to motivate my students. I feel technology has the potential to transform the education of my current students so that "learning" becomes less of a chore and more of a discovery and a joy.
My route into teaching began when I started spending much more time teaching sailing to the new members of my sailing club at Plymouth Poly instead of spending it on my Civil Engineering diploma. A friend in the club suggested I teach sailing on the kids camps in the US. I did two summers at Camp Chipinaw in NY before returning to the UK, moving to Bristol and working for a Highway Maintenance consultancy for three years.
I began doing more outdoor activities, doing a lot of hill-walking around the UK as well as kayaking and continuing to sail. I eventually quit the highways job and completed a BA in Sport, health and Phys Ed in Bangor, at the foot of the Snowdon mountain range in North Wales. I then spent six months at Plas Menai in the same area, doing a water-sports instructors course.
I went back to America again and worked at Camp Summit, PA, again as a sailing instructor. The second summer there, I met met my wife, who hailed from Australia and so emigrated over here. Having arrived here, I trained as a PDHPE teacher, but didn't enjoy the field sports as much as I'd hoped and retrained as a maths teacher in 2001 working in Moree for five years.
We transferred to Nowra in 2006. It's a beautiful town with the sea on one side and mountains on the other. To some extent, quite like the area around Bangor.
I believe experience is a vital part (if not the whole) of an education. My experiences over the last 20 years or so, once I grew up and started taking responsibility for myself have been extremely transforming. I would like to think that my teaching style is to try and offer experience over content but I can't help feel that i have a way to go before I can actually offer this to my students as an acceptable vehicle toward learning mathematics.
