Her tone frightens me

As she spouts equations at the speed of sound

My pencil furiously marks my paper

With numbers and letters

If she hears the tapping of a pencil

She turns around with her hawk eyes

"Stop!" she yells

The room is then in silence

And she turns back around to continue her lecture.

My head feels like it's bursting open

Thanks to my teachers

Logarithmic functions, exponential equations

The Fundamental Theorem, and Descartes Rule

I was never good at math

It's a foreign language

She makes it seem so easy

Each problem takes a minute

I return home to start my homework

And it takes several painful hours to complete

And I never have time to do what I enjoy

Thanks to my teachers

"What use will this have in my future?"

I ask the question that all students want the answer to

"We're training you to think,"

She replies with a smile

Later I look back

And see that her teaching was in love

She didn't just love the equations, theorems, rules, and functions

She loved her students

And she loved teaching

Her efforts to quiet us

Were efforts to help us focus

To learn something that only a portion of the world is taught

I used to watch the minute hand tick away at my life

Minutes I could spend doing things I enjoy

But now I understand

That she was always lending a helping hand

Thanks to my teachers

I know how to think