I grew up on an 800-acre fish farm in Milan, TN. Fish farming never seemed to be my thing so I sought other endeavors. Both of my parents were teachers in Ohio before moving to Tennessee. When I told them of my desire to become a teacher, they tried hard to talk me out of it claiming that they had gotten out of teaching to become farmers and that I should learn something from that. Luckily, I am a very stubborn person and would not take much advice from them as far as my career path was concerned.
I have been married to Clete for almost 6 years -- our anniversary is November 16. We met at college, but did not become involved until we had Abstract Algebra together -- don't ever let anyone tell you that math is not good for anything. Lucky for me, Clete did not buy the book that semester so we had to study together often. After several years of working for someone else, Clete decided to try self-employment. In February of this year, he started ABI Window Cleaning. So far, it is going really great and when I have time, I go out with him and clean windows, too!
My sister, Jenny, and her husband, Dan, live on the same fish farm where we grew up. They both have masters degrees from Auburn University in aquaculture. They have been very busy starting their own business (Greenwater Fish Farm) of raising sportfish for pondstocking -- largemouth bass, bluegill, hybrid bluegill, channel catfish, and various others. They have also been busy starting their family. They have one son, Sam (my godson) who is 18 months old and a brand new daughter, Ella, born August 31,2002.
My brother, Andrew, is 18 and a senior in high school. He was recently elected Senior Class President. He is only taking two classes this semester (they are on block) so he has plenty of time to work on the farm. He also spends a lot of time studying precalculus which he is taking for college credit through the University of Tennessee at Martin. When Andrew is not studying or working, he enjoys hunting, dating, and being cool.
I am a first year doctoral student working on a Ph.D. in mathematics education at the University of Georgia. I taught in the mathematics department at Middle Tennessee State University three years. I was allowed to teach trigonometry, college algebra, general mathematics, mathematics for finance, mathematics for elementary school teachers, finite mathematics, and business calculus. It has been my experience that you can not really understand the subject matter until you teach it to someone.
I then taught at a high school for one year where I learned more than I ever learned in all of those college courses that I took. There really is no way to prepare for that experience -- you must jump in with both feet and hope that you will have all of the support that you need.
In that year, I decided that novice teachers do need much more support that what is provided by the school. I would like to work with pre-service teachers as well as first and second year teachers giving them this extra support.