About Me

Akiko Shiina

My name is Akiko Shiina. I am a 7th grade math teacher. This is my 6th year teaching at LAMS, and I am enjoying teaching math!

I was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. I went to all elementary school through college in Japan. My major is in elementary level education, and my minor is secondary level education. While I was a student teacher, I felt that I would be happier teaching at a middle school so I got a job at a middle school in Japan. I taught English and Japanese for nine years at Japanese public schools. While I was a teacher in Japan, I was chosen to be an exchange teacher and went to Utica community schools in Michigan for a year. In their program, all 7th graders have to take exploratory languages before deciding to take one foreign language the following year. Because of the car industry, many students wanted to learn Japanese as their second language, so they offered Japanese classes at high schools. However, most of the foreign language teachers at the middle schools didn’t know how to teach Japanese and did not teach Japanese in the exploratory the language class. I was invited to demonstrate how to teach Japanese and make teaching materials for those teachers. While I was in Michigan, I learned many differences between the United States and Japanese's education systems and teaching styles. Knowing two different cultures helped me to understand diversities and to teach in many different ways.

After I married, I moved to the United States. When our children started to go to school, I became a parent volunteer and went to their classes for seven years. After our youngest son started to go to kindergarten, I became an instructional assistant (IA) at Aspen school. At that time, schools in New Mexico are adapting the Common Core State Standards. When I learned about the way to teach math while I was an IA, I found out that it is exactly how I learned to solve mathematical problems in Japan. As an IA, I had opportunities to teach students math. It was fun to teach math and see students smile when they understood mathematical logic. Working as an IA made me feel I really wanted to teach at a middle school one more time, so I decided to get a New Mexico mathematical teaching license, and here I am now.

Our school district encouraged us to get master degrees to support our students. My students have showed me that learning is fun. Whenever they learned new things or skills, they are very excited and happier, so I decided to go back to school and get a master degree with gifted education endorsement. After two years with my family supports, I got a master degree and another endorsement.

My goal is to make my students think logically and be able to figure out any problems by themselves. To do it, I will let my students explain how they figure out solutions in front of the class and let them write their logical steps a lot. It may be hard at the beginning, but once they get used to it, students feel everything will be easier and want to learn more. It is hard at the beginning, but it will become fun! I hope I could teach my students how to enjoy solving mathematical problems, overcome difficult situations in their lives, and enjoy their lives. These are my goals. Let's enjoy many things together. I want to support our students to be able to connect now and their future to be successful in their future.