Leaders in the business community often pursue all kinds of fields, from financial pathways, to entrepreneurship, and even public service, like Mrs. Rosa Martinez, a middle school mathematics teacher. In this article, smartteenmoney had the privilege of hearing Mrs. Martinez’s story firsthand as she tells about her experience in the realm of business, and why she chose to pursue a career in education. She received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from University of Nevada Reno, and Masters Degree in Urban Education from Loyola Marymount University:

For my undergraduate degree I went into business as a way to help me achieve a personal goal of wanting to be able to engage more with people. I have never been a people person and struggle in social environments, but this was something I wanted to change. I wanted to be able to stand up in front of an audience and be able to present, to be able to share ideas with others, or simply hold a conversation in which I could contribute and not just listen. Business seemed the right fit for me to study as it involved communication and leadership skills,  as well as because I knew there would be a mathematical component which I have always been a great scholar in. 

During my studies I explored accounting, finance, statistics, supply chain management and economics in terms of math material. I really enjoyed all of them and was able to see how all these subjects fit into our daily lives, sometimes without us even realizing it. After graduating I was able to hold a position as an office manager in which I applied the skills I had studied in college and was grateful for the knowledge I had. I had to do spreadsheets, account balances, payroll, bill payments, supply orders all which required math. I enjoyed this work, but was missing the people component at one point. I wanted to experience more of the engagement with people, especially young people, I have always wanted youth to be one of my focuses with my work, so when the opportunity to go into teaching I took it. 

I have been able to work with middle school age students as their math teacher for four years now. This opportunity has allowed me to combine my skills in math and people engagement. Of course there are pros and cons like with and job, one being students aren’t always fans of math, sometimes making it difficult for them to engage. Students’ favorite line to say is “why do we have to learn this, when will we ever use it”, especially with technological advances this is becoming a hard question to answer as students will say, “I can just use my phone, or computer to find the answer”. Because of this question, I have worked on not only teaching the skills required by the curriculum but also trying to show students that there are real-world situations in which they can use their math skills and why they are important. 

The most common real-world concept which middle school students are exposed to are integers (negative and positive numbers). This is a skill which we can see in many aspects of daily life, most common in temperature and banking/money situations. Once again discussing financial situations, which at this age students aren’t always thinking about but as they grow older they will hopefully realize the importance of these skills and recall their knowledge of middle school math, especially since one day they will all have a bank account and will need to understand how to manage their money within that account. 

One of the most important skills I think students can benefit from knowing is percents. We see percents everywhere in our daily lives, sometimes without even noticing them; shopping (discounts and markups), interest rates, mortgage rates, banking, car loans, student loans, and so many other things we see and hear day to day. Students are exposed to percents in sixth grade, just as a concept – knowing how to convert it and what it means as a part of a whole. When they move up to seventh grade they are now being exposed to utilizing percents as a markup or discount in personal and business making decisions. Students have to learn how to apply the percent given the situation they are being presented with. One comment I have often heard about the school system is why are students not taught real life skills, such as financial literacy. Often these skills are only learned if a student chooses such a class as an elective but has not been a part of the standard curriculum. Although percents are only one part of real-world financial concepts I am glad middle school students are being exposed to it and that I am able to enhance their learning by sharing my knowledge from my personal and educational background. 

Another skill which has a lot of focus across middle school math is geometry, specifically area, perimeter, and volume. Not only do students learn about formulas and utilize them to find what they are asked for, but they also learn to use that knowledge in real-world situations. They are presented with examples to find costs or how much of a material they will need to cover a certain shape or figure based on the task at hand. This particular skill helps introduce them to a small portion of supply chain management, without even realizing it. As middle school students learning math they might not be interested in knowing what supply chain management is, but without knowing it they are applying skills that maybe one day they will use in their future jobs to calculate costs of goods or how materials are factored into production of goods. 

Lastly, students learn about data through probability and statistics. They learn about reading, analyzing, and using data on graphs and charts/tables. They become familiar with mean, median, mode, range, etc. and how that information can be used to make predictions for future productions of goods, likelihood of events happening, and other business analyzing strategies. 

So when you hear the questions, “Why do we have to learn this?” or “Will we ever use this in the real world,” remember how important middle school math is so that you can get an early understanding of real world financial concepts!