I figured that teaching was the one way I could make a living doing math. A major turning point in Delaney's approach to teaching occurred nine years into her career, when she moved from the high school to the middle school in North St. Paul. Middle school kids are so invigorated, so excited. People compare being in a middle school classroom to being inside a popcorn popper when the kernels start to explode. It's exhausting, and I discovered that the attitude I had had as a high school teacher was not going to work in middle school.
Good teachers think about their kids first.
I learned during my master's work to go beyond teaching math for math's sake, and to teach in a way that allows kids to get beyond simply moving numbers and letters around on a page, to truly understand the concepts behind the numbers. For our parents and grandparents, math involved having a good memory. There was little understanding. I want kids to dig deeper and climb higher. I don't want them going in circles.