Sonya Rooke has been teaching for quite some time now, but she still wants to encourage students. Rooke has been teaching for 12 years; 10 years as a middle school teacher, and two years as a high school teacher. Rooke loves the students, she loves teaching the content and, of course, she loves math.
Rooke feels like she didn’t have a good math teacher except for during her junior year of high school. Rooke said, “Mr. Apbel, my junior year math teacher, really inspired me to become a math teacher.” Rooke wants to encourage students to like math and the content that she’s teaching, and wants students to find confidence in math.
She makes teaching fun by using trail mix for distributive property and ordering food from the burger shack while talking about combining like terms. She uses things that the students have done that relate to the concepts. Her favorite part of teaching is “when the student gets the concept,” Rooke said. Rooke loves that math is organized, there’s a process and that you can solve questions.
Rooke loves the beach, pool and anything around water. She enjoys sitting by the pool or beach and just looking out and enjoying the scenery.
She is dive certified in scuba diving. Rooke loves to spend time with family and friends. Before teaching, she was in the marketing field and did trade shows for a private company. Rooke has taught in South Carolina, North Carolina and Guam.
During Covid, she taught middle school in Guam on a Navy military base. All of the students’ parents there were active in the military. Her passion for teaching has taken her around the world.
