How a Fifth-Grade Classroom Shaped My View of Math

I can still picture the moment when I first decided I was bad at math. I was sitting in my fifth-grade classroom when “New Math” arrived with great fanfare. Suddenly, the numbers on the page made no sense to me. I remember staring at the problems and feeling completely lost. Not long after that, I…

The Girl on the South Porch Knew

You know how sometimes you read that if you go back to what you loved doing when you were a little kid—four, five, or six—then that will tell you what your ideal occupation should be? Well, in my case, this is exactly true, because when I was a little girl, my favorite thing in the…