Some say that football is the ultimate team sport. Others say baseball. The ones left out of those two groups say basketball. But none of those representations of teamwork come close to the true image of teamwork that I believe in.
I have been involved in a math team since elementary school, and although my family has moved numerous times, math team has always been my one and only stable activity. When I first decided to join a math team, I dreaded the hours I would have to spend in a room doing difficult math problems all by myself. I could see into my future, and I was sitting in a desk with a piece of scratch paper and a pencil boring my eyes out with math problems. The first day held true to my psychic visions, as I essentially sat in a desk all by myself with a piece of scratch paper and a pencil. As I looked around on my second day, I realized that everyone was not sitting down, but moving around the room with pieces of paper and a pencil, asking others questions and doing problems with friends. These people soon grew to be some of my best friends when I began to move around the room and discover new areas of math that I had never known like those mysterious fractions and division signs.
It has been nearly ten years since I joined my first math team. Along the way, I have learned so much about math with some of the best friends I have today. Together, we have conquered math from fractions to fractals and division signs to derivatives. And yet, the one thing I treasure about math team is not the things that I have learned or the people that I have met, but the community that I have found.
I have been involved in a math team since elementary school, and although my family has moved numerous times, math team has always been my one and only stable activity. When I first decided to join a math team, I dreaded the hours I would have to spend in a room doing difficult math problems all by myself. I could see into my future, and I was sitting in a desk with a piece of scratch paper and a pencil boring my eyes out with math problems. The first day held true to my psychic visions, as I essentially sat in a desk all by myself with a piece of scratch paper and a pencil. As I looked around on my second day, I realized that everyone was not sitting down, but moving around the room with pieces of paper and a pencil, asking others questions and doing problems with friends. These people soon grew to be some of my best friends when I began to move around the room and discover new areas of math that I had never known like those mysterious fractions and division signs.
It has been nearly ten years since I joined my first math team. Along the way, I have learned so much about math with some of the best friends I have today. Together, we have conquered math from fractions to fractals and division signs to derivatives. And yet, the one thing I treasure about math team is not the things that I have learned or the people that I have met, but the community that I have found.