What makes a mathematician?

Over the semester of taking this capstone class we have learned about quite a few mathematicians. We learned about Omar Jhayyam, Li Zhi, Descartes, Fermat, and so many more. There are so many famous mathematicians that have made a great impact over the years. It is hard to pick one to write about in a blog. This got me thinking, what makes a person a mathematician? According to dictionary.com, a mathematician is an expert or specialist in mathematics. There are a few people I know that I think are mathematicians.

In my opinion, a mathematician is a person who is passionate about mathematics and invests time into solving problems. Having the chance to work with students this semester, I consider some of them to be mathematicians. Even though I hear a lot of my students complain about math and how it is so hard, there are a few of them that enjoy it and well not stop until they solve a problem they are given. Even the activities we give them that are supposed to be fun and relaxing, students got frustrated when they couldn't figure it out and wanted more time. We had an activity called 31 where students had a deck of cards and had to make put cards in a 5 by 5 grid. Each row and column had to add up to 31. Students got to the end of the hour and wanted to take cards home so they could figure it out. Some of them even drew it out on a piece paper because they didn't have any cards. They were not getting a grade or any prize. They wanted to figure out the problem and started to find the patterns. That is when students start to become mathematician in my opinion. 

Some on my teachers are mathematicians. My professor John Golden is a mathematician. His passion and dedication to exploring and teaching students mathematics is something I admire. I hope that I can be a great math teacher one day and get my students excited about math just like he does for his college students. He always comes to class with different activities and topics to explore. I am always interested to see what we are going to do next.

Now to the question of am I a mathematician? I will admit that I did not always love math (surprising yes). However, I did grow to admire math and began to love it when I had teachers who showed my how I could learn it. There are some topics in math that I get fascinated by and could spend hours exploring it. Do I ever see myself spending time researching and making a knew discovery in math… no. I do see myself inspiring other kids to explore math and teach them that it is possible to learn math. I want to help my students who think math is hard find a way that it makes sense to them. I want to be able to show enthusiasm while I teach so that my students get excited to learn. So I guess yes, I am a mathematician because I am passionate about teaching math and want to help my students learn.

Mathematicians are not just those people so create a formula or make the next big discovery and publish a book. Mathematicians are everywhere and most do not become famous at all. I think every person might have a little mathematician inside of them but not every person is a mathematician. So who do you consider to be a mathematician?