Golda had some friends over last night to do math. This morning, she went to school early to attend a math lab. I was not jealous! One of the best things about being an adult, for me, is not having to ever solve for x.
The way my brain works, math is like pin the tail on the donkey without a donkey. I see the tail. I get that it is a tail. I just don't know how to apply it to anything tangible because there is no donkey. There is nothing to relate math to that has any relevance to anything I know. So you solve a math problem and the answer is three hundred forty-eight. So what? That 348 is the equivalent of a paper donkey tail at a birthday party where everyone else is playing musical chairs. I don't need it and I'll never need it again. It's not like I'll be at a party twenty years down the road and someone will say, "Hey, does anyone have an extra donkey tail?" It's useless!
In other subjects, you take the things you learn and use them. I still know that the difference between its and it's. I can go to a museum and know who painted what. When I hear about Syria on the news, I know where it is. The things that touched my soul stayed with me. I still get emotional when I think of the lines, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home..." Ironically, "a sleep and a forgetting" pretty accurately describes my math experience, but the only emotion I feel when I think about algebra is despair.
Sure, math comes in handy when you're trying to land the Apollo 13 or invent the artificial heart. For everything else, there are calculators. Or tutors, if you grow up to have kids who must suffer through years of Pin the Tail on What?
Freestone told me, "Exercise sharpens our minds and helps us focus. That's why old people are so dumb sometimes. Because they're not active." (ouch!) So it's not math that helps you stay sharp anyway. It's P.E., just like every fourth grade boy has been trying to tell us for the last...oh, how many years?...ten?...hundred?...just a minute, let me get my calculator.
The way my brain works, math is like pin the tail on the donkey without a donkey. I see the tail. I get that it is a tail. I just don't know how to apply it to anything tangible because there is no donkey. There is nothing to relate math to that has any relevance to anything I know. So you solve a math problem and the answer is three hundred forty-eight. So what? That 348 is the equivalent of a paper donkey tail at a birthday party where everyone else is playing musical chairs. I don't need it and I'll never need it again. It's not like I'll be at a party twenty years down the road and someone will say, "Hey, does anyone have an extra donkey tail?" It's useless!
In other subjects, you take the things you learn and use them. I still know that the difference between its and it's. I can go to a museum and know who painted what. When I hear about Syria on the news, I know where it is. The things that touched my soul stayed with me. I still get emotional when I think of the lines, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home..." Ironically, "a sleep and a forgetting" pretty accurately describes my math experience, but the only emotion I feel when I think about algebra is despair.
Sure, math comes in handy when you're trying to land the Apollo 13 or invent the artificial heart. For everything else, there are calculators. Or tutors, if you grow up to have kids who must suffer through years of Pin the Tail on What?
Freestone told me, "Exercise sharpens our minds and helps us focus. That's why old people are so dumb sometimes. Because they're not active." (ouch!) So it's not math that helps you stay sharp anyway. It's P.E., just like every fourth grade boy has been trying to tell us for the last...oh, how many years?...ten?...hundred?...just a minute, let me get my calculator.
7 comments:
That's where marrying a math minor has come in really handy.
The thing about math is, done well, it's invisible. Most of us don't have to think about it much because someone already has. I'm grateful for that, in the same way I'm grateful for art, although I'll never be able to draw. Perhaps a failing of math education, at least in the public sphere, is too little focus on application. And I'm not talking "if a train leaves ... " story problems. I agree with you that algebra and "so what?" go hand in hand. I wouldn't say math ever spoke to my soul, but my senior year math class did offer many ah-ha moments. You need a Malcolm! (Now, I'm sure I could help my 9th grader with her homework if only she'd give me time to review the concepts!)
I wonder. You never say so here, but any talk on math rankles me when I also think of how society thinks that math people are smarter than say, word people. Your thoughts?
Aargh! I meant the idea that if you don't pursue or like math, you must not be as smart as someone who does.
So funny! I agree completely!
LOVE it! This is why you and I are friends!
I don't get math at all. I think I can do up to 8th grade. Kenzie is a math wiz. Her teacher told her in math, she thought like an Asian. We thought that was funny. I like you, don't think the alphabet should belong with numbers.
Love it, wondered some of the same things! Ouch, what Freestone said, I had better get out there and exercise more!and keep that brain going and the blood flowing!.. I do word puzzles does that count for anything? But when it comes to Sudukos, I am stumped, numbers!...XO Tricia
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