My Story
It started at my grandmother's kitchen table
I was seven. I bought math workbooks, gave her the problems, and marked her answers in red pen.
Other kids played with toys. I bought printed math workbooks, handed the problems to my grandmother, and sat next to her with a red pen while she worked through them line by line. I marked her honestly. I explained what she got wrong, and I made a fuss when she got things right.
That is where I found out I would rather teach math than just do it. It has not really changed since.
Watching someone's face change when a thing finally makes sense is still the best part of the job.
Training
Where the math came from
I went to a specialized physics and mathematics academy. It was not the usual arrangement, where each branch of math gets its own year and then you move on. The subjects ran alongside each other and never stopped.
Grades 1–6
One subject, Mathematics — five or six lessons a week.
Grades 7–11
Two maths subjects at once, every year: algebra with early analysis, and geometry. Nine or ten lessons a week.
University was more of the same, at a higher level. I wrote and defended two theses: one in applied economics, one in mathematics.
- Calculus
- Linear Algebra
- Differential Equations
- Probability & Statistics
- Optimization Methods
- Economic Mathematics
After school
I sat the entrance exams and went to two universities.
Bachelor's degree
Economics
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Master's degree
Applied Mathematics
Saint Petersburg State University
The Work
How this became the job
In tenth grade a neighbour asked if I would help her daughter get through her state exams. We were the same age. I taught her anyway, step by step, and she did well enough that her parents insisted on paying me. That was the first time anyone treated me as a tutor rather than a classmate.
After that it was word of mouth. One parent told another. I never advertised.
By the end of my master's I knew I did not want an office job. I wanted to be at the board. I switched to teaching in English before I moved, and once I was in Brooklyn I taught American students full time, in person and online.
Five years in the U.S.
Helping students with the American curriculum, and the exams that come with it:
- Digital SAT
- Regents Exams
- SHSAT
- State Standardized Tests
Parents passed my name on because their kids were not just getting better grades. They were less afraid.
Keeping Up
Courses I have taken since
Exams change and so do the tools students are allowed to use in them. I take courses to keep up.
Digital SAT Math Coaching
How the adaptive test actually works, and how to use the Desmos calculator built into it.
Math Coaching & Student Pedagogy
Working with math anxiety, and teaching the same idea more than one way when the first way doesn't land.
GeoGebra Institute Workshops
Dynamic graphs, so a formula turns into something a student can move and watch.
How I Teach
Most students meet math as something to get past. I would rather they met it as something they can use.
My job is not to get a student through Friday's quiz. It is to take the fear out of the subject and show them that math is a language they can actually speak.
Some students need to fill in gaps from two years ago. Some need a specific score on a specific exam. Some just need someone to be patient with them until it clicks. All three are normal, and all three are fixable.