Hello everyone! My name is Melissa Bostic, I am 22 years old, and I live in Mount Olive, North Carolina.
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| Me (left) and my best friend Olivia (right) |
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| Sunset on the farm. |
I live on the farm with my mama and stepdad.
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| Mama and Richard (stepdad) in Key West, FL |
My dad and stepmom live in Fuquay-Varina, NC where I lived up until the age of 4. I have one older sister who is earning her PhD from Duke University in sociology and I also have three step brothers and the most precious little nephew ever named Wyatt.
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Amie and I when she returned from Germany a few weeks ago. |
During my spare time I spend the majority of my time at my parents place in Topsail Island where I love to enjoy the sand, salt, and sun. Something that makes me unique is that I am double jointed in all 10 fingers (which tends to creep quite a few people out).
Math to Me:
Math to me is the usage of numbers and objects to come up
with a solution to a problem. When I
think of math the first things that come to mind are: numbers, symbols, shapes,
and thinking. When it comes to learning mathematics
I feel that I am able to grasp concepts fairly easy but like most people I have
to try a few times in order to completely grasp the full concepts. When it comes to teaching mathematics this is
one of my favorite subjects to teach because of the complexity that can be
involved with it. I also really enjoy
teaching mathematics because I love the look on the child’s face when they
grasp the concept and become confident in their skills. Elementary school mathematics should be
something that DOES have a lot of focus on it but it also needs to be something
that the child enjoys doing. There are
ways to make math fun for the students while also making sure they learn the
appropriate things they need for the “test”.
If you teach the students in elementary school a fun way to do a
problem, or a song to assist in their figuring out the problem, or just not
pressure them on a problem they will learn to enjoy math and not feel so forced
to do it. The idea of being good in mathematics
to me means that you are able to figure out the problems that are put in front
of you using techniques that have been taught to you by the teacher or even
figuring out a way to solve a problem on your own. When I was in school I remember I seemed to
always find an easier way of figuring out a problem and sometimes the teacher
would have a problem with that but the majority of the time they were excited
to see that I had broadened my spectrum of thinking. A good mathematics teacher thinks of ways to
help their student to learn mathematics even if it means coming up with that
students on particular method of figuring out the problem. A good mathematics teacher would take the
time to show the student how to do the problem and be patient and if they see
that their method is not working then they should sit back and rethink on a
different method they could use to teach the student. Every student is capable of learning you just
have to dig down to find the right method to help them!
Person I would Like to Have a Conversation With:
If I
could choose one famous person to meet with and have a conversation with I
believe I would choose Oprah Winfrey. I have watched the Oprah Winfrey show
since she was on basic cable channels and continue to watch her now that she is
on her own network the OWN channel. She has always been so inspirational to be
because she is a strong woman who has become a billionaire and the fact that she
started with almost nothing and has built her empire as large as she has. I am
not one to boast on money (clearly being that I am going into education) but the
fact that she has made herself so large and probably never predicted she would
astonishes me. The reason I would like to have a conversation with Oprah is to
get an insight into her true personality aside from the public personality she
has to portray. Oprah is always in the public eye which means she has to watch
her actions at all times so that something negative does not come about on her
reputation and I have always wondered if she would be so humble in a private
face to face meeting or if she would potentially cut loose and act like a
"friend" when not being filmed. Oprah is a strong woman which is something I
believe in and am working toward becoming myself which is one of the main
reasons I would like to meet her to see how she is able to stay so strong even
when tragedy strikes.
I hope this blog has helped everyone to learn a little about me and I look forward to working with you all throughout this semester :)
Hey Melissa! It's nice to meet you! Just like you I always played school when I was little. I also thought overhead projectors were the coolest thing ever, so I pretended one of my rolling three drawer containers was a projector. I also think living on a farm would be really cool. Two questions. Do you have any animals on the farm? Also, where is Fuquay-Varina, NC? I have never heard of it.
ReplyDeleteMath is an awesome subject and it seems like you enjoy it, just like I do. Why would your teacher get mad sometimes when you solved problems in an easier way? As teachers we need to remember that not all students see the problems in the same way, and some students can solve them differently than others. There is nothing wrong with that.
Wanting to speak with Oprah is also really cool. I think she is such an amazing woman. She has done so much to help others and she is so funny on her show. I think it would be cool to see if her personality was the same as it was in everyday life. Do you have specific questions you would want to ask her or would you just want to hang out?
I look forward to working with you this semester!
Hey Randall! I am glad to know that you as well played school when you were little. I always enjoyed it! That is funny about the over head projector. We were never that crafty.
DeleteOn the farm we have around 250 cows and 5 hog houses holding 1,320 hogs a piece. The hogs are grown for Murphy Brown's where they sell to Smithfield foods. Fuquay-Varina is located in Wake County but is also relatively close to Harnett County and Johnson County. It also located near Garner (where Scotty Mcreery is from :) )!
I really do enjoy math quite a bit! I think the reason teachers seemed to get frustrated when I would come up with a different way of doing the problems is because they were looking at the way the book was teaching us the problem and were wanting us to follow in that lead.
If I could meet with Oprah I would like to know how she stays so level headed and down to Earth when she is so famous and I would also want to know how she deals with criticisms from the outside world. I would also love to talk to her about her fabulous shoe collection :)
I look forward to working with you as well!
Wow! That is a lot of cows and hogs but that is so cool that they are sold to Smithfield foods in the end! I have heard of Wake County and Garner. Scotty Mcreery goes to NC State and so does one of my best friends, and she always thinks it is so cool when she sees him. She said he always wears a hat and tried to hide himself sometimes so he could be a normal college student.
ReplyDeleteYour teachers need to learn from us that math can be done in many different ways to get the same answers! They would be better teachers!
I have lived here for five years and each semester I find that there are so many places that I need to visit. Your farm sounds wonderful and it's a place that we haven't yet taken Theo to but I'm sure he'd love it.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that you have a fairly positive view of mathematics. Looking forward to working with all of you this semester.
Randall, yes it is quite a large farm. The picture I have above does not even do it justice. Two of my best friends just transferred to State this semester and their second night there they actually met him and got a picture with him. They said the same thing about him trying to keep hidden while he was at school as well. As for the teachers needing to be more open minded I could not agree more. I remember getting extremely frustrated in elementary school when my teachers would tell me the book said we had to do the problems a certain way.
ReplyDeleteDr. Higgins, Duplin County is a great place once you can get past the many odd smells of animals that come your way. We have many interesting things to see here as well. I look forward to the things I will be learning this semester to better me as a mathematics teacher!