A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME...
Education
In school I loved mathematical subjects.
When I was given the opportunity to choose subjects at the end of Grade 9, I was thrilled to be able to drop subjects like History, Geography and Biology (much to my parents’ disappointment, I think – my mother is a doctor and my father is a botonist). As you may well guess, I was not a huge fan of subjects that required a lot of fact memorization!
Instead, I was able to take subjects that I actually enjoyed – Mathematics, Physical Science, Music and Accounting. I would have liked to have taken Art – but I confess that the Art History put me off!
After I finished school, I decided to study education.
I have a Bachelor of Education for Foundation Phase (South Africa’s equivalent of Kindergarten to 3rd Grade).
While I was studying, I majored in Mathematics. When I was doing my practice teaching, I realised that this was where my passion truly lay (which I suppose shouldn’t really have been a surprise!).
Teaching Experience
Since I discovered that I really wanted to teach Mathematics, when I finished my studies at the end of 2008, I sought a position as a High School Mathematics teacher.
I was very fortunate that the school where I had done my practice teaching was happy to employ me, and I began teaching there in January 2009.
I learned a great deal while I was teaching there, and grew both personally and professionally. I stayed there for 4 years, and while I was there, I was lucky to be given the opportunity to teach all grades from Grade 8 through to Grade 12.
I was also incredibly fortunate to be given the opportunity to teach A Level Mathematics and Mechanics – an experience through which I really learned a lot.
After 4 years, I needed to move to a different school, where I would be teaching not only Mathematics, but also Physical Science. I will readily admit that this prospect terrified me! I had not really studied Science since I was in school myself, and I was particularly afraid at the idea of doing experiments!
So, with great trepidation, I embarked on the next phase of my career…
And discovered that I really enjoyed teaching Physical Science – much to my surprise! It took a lot of work and a lot of learning, but the growth I experienced was incredible. I think I can even say that by the end of my time at this school, I actually liked teaching Science more than Mathematics!
I stayed at this school for 6 years, and then, at the end of 2018, I decided it was time to resign so that I could focus on my family.
Teacher Author Career
I started my TPT store at the beginning of 2020.
Originally, I only planned on creating educational resources – worksheets, games and so forth – but my store has expanded far beyond anything I initially imagined.
A few months into my TPT journey, I decided to try my hand at creating clipart. I had always enjoyed art and this was a great creative outlet for me. I also learned how to create animated GIFs – which were incredibly useful at that time, when digital resources were popular for distance learning.
After a while, I started getting back into creating resources – but when I was creating a bingo game I was frustrated at how long it was taking. I decided to see if I could figure out a more efficient way of making it. I ended up teaching myself to code in order to create macros – and created my Bingo Generator. This led me to create a Matching Game Generator and finally my Time Savers Add-in.
My latest endeavour has been creating lessons in an effort to help my own children with their maths.
It certainly has been an exciting, and in many ways surprising, ride!