Personal Narrative: Algebra In Middle School

I used to love math all the way up until my middle school years. The simple adding and subtracting was always more fun and easier to do compared to the other subjects I had. Though, when it came to learning the much harder stuff, multiplication tables, I was never able to engrave all of them in my head. Memorizing them was no help either because I knew that I would forget them in time. I taught myself how to find the answer differently. I used my fingers to add them up, and eventually get the result of the two numbers multiplied. Of course this took much longer, nevertheless gave me the answer I was looking for. I had been doing really good and recieving the highest grade in all of my math classes. I was really proud of myself because I had …show more content…
Subsequently after the seventh grade, all the top math students were placed in a pre-AP algebra 1 class. I was excited because I thought that I was gonna love it and it was going to be exactly like all of the other math classes I took. The next year arrived and it was time to head to my first class of the day with my new teacher. My teachers name was Mr. Mendez and he seemed really nice and easy to talk to. He was going to be my teacher for the Algebra class. I couldnt wait to begin class thinking that I would hopefully keep my name at the top of the board with the highest grade. It came as a shock to me that nothing was as I had thought it would be. The material was completely different and Mr. Mendez had changed from a nice and welcoming teacher to a very strict one. I was scared. It was barely the first day of class and all of the material he was handing out to us I had never seen before in my life. After giving the lesson and passing out the handouts, he told the class that we were going to have our first test tomorrow. I looked at him to see if he was joking, but he stayed staring at the class with raised eyebrows and a straight …show more content…
Once breakfast was over, he passed out the tests. I grabbed it from his hand and it was a thick packet. I looked through it and had answered nothing for the first thirty minutes. He yelled that we had forty more minutes left before the class was over and we needed to turn them in to him before the period ended. I panicked and hoped that I would get to answer at least a few of them. I didn't. For the life of me I just couldn't understand any of it. The next day he gave us our grades and mine was the lowest from the entire class. I was devastated. Of course, it had only been my first day, and there was plenty of time to improve, so I gave myself some time. Approximately twenty failing grades and countless sleepless nights later, I was in the same dilemma. I approached him one day after class to see if I could ask him for tutoring and he said that he would be starting tutorials next week. I smiled and left the room. When tutorials arrived, I started to understand more and more each day. Given that I never got the highest average of the class, I still managed to improve my algebra skills and maintain a passing grade. Although he was extremely hard and strict, he made me become a better student and learn