Mathematics made Emma Schultz sick — to the point where she would get nauseous or faint when confronted with a fraction problem, long division or something to do with decimals.
That was a problem for Schultz, 24, who was in the process of getting her master’s degree in special education and her license to be an elementary school teacher.
Last spring, when she was interning at an elementary school in the Mapleton school district, students were asking for her help on a fraction assignment, and Schultz could not do it. “I felt like I was going to pass out,” she said.
Schultz directed students to use their calculators and realized she had to change. She swore to herself that she would never allow a simple math problem to trip her up again.
“I figured I can’t continue in life like this,” Schultz said. “. . . I can’t be a teacher and not know how to help my students.”
Schultz began a journey of self-improvement that took her to a storefront tutoring franchise and twice-weekly lessons with an unlikely instructor — Molly Potter, an 18-year-old senior at Northglenn High School.
Potter, who works at The Tutoring Center in Westminster, became Schultz’s mentor, helping her learn how to multiply, do fractions, long division and master the decimals.
Schultz was the only adult getting tutored.
“Emma just needed to work on her confidence,” said Potter, who hopes become a math teacher. “She was very afraid of math. I told her that she could do it, no matter what.”
The two figured out ways to make Schultz understand, used repetition and drilled in the essence of the math concepts.
Schultz said once she got over being the only adult getting tutored and being taught by a teenager, her fear of math faded, and she began to learn.
Schultz eventually passed the state’s licensure test — which contains 30 math questions that make up 25 percent of the test’s overall score.
She said she learned a valuable lesson that she now tries to impart to her students: ask questions, take time and work with your teacher to figure out ways to understand the core ideas. “You have to take it step by step,” she said.
Now, Schultz is student teaching in Mapleton, working with sixth-graders. Last week, she led a lesson on fractions, and that in the past would have been a disaster.
She explained to the students how difficult fractions used to be for her and how she had to work hard to understand how to master them. “They really took to that,” she said. “They were asking questions and getting involved.”
That was a lesson she learned from an 18-year-old student.
