Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Eye Cue

A few weeks ago, Tater, Paul and I were discussing intelligence. We were talking about it because Tater had just taken an IQ test and I was concerned that she might actually be smarter than me. I have serious superiority issues most of the time sometimes. Not that I'm saying Tater isn't smart because, oh gosh, she is! It's just that I want to be smarter. I mean, I'm not asking for much, am I?

We discussed how when it comes to all things numberish and puzzlish, (I just made up two whole new words - see how smart I am?) Tater definitely rocks. I got my very first C, D and F ever in Algebra I and that subject nearly killed me. I can do basic normal math, like balancing my checkbook and counting back change (a skill that no teenager now posesses). We started learning our multiplication tables in 3rd grade, but it wasn't until 6th grade that I had a remote grasp on them. To me, numbers just don't make a whole lot of sense. Yet Tater took some kind of strange math in college - college! *gasp* - and while it looked to me like chicken-scratch and possibly alien communication, she loved the challenge it presented her and went on to take more strange numberish classes. And I took the writing assignments in Comp I at NEO and made tender, literary love to them, honing my future-blogging skills (little did I know) and enjoying every moment I spent composing, among others, a descriptive essay about Bugle Boy jeans. (I was 18, sue me. There wasn't a lot of life-experience there yet.) Paul can add gazillions of numbers in his head and that boggles my mind. I mean, literally. boggles. my. mind. He can also take apart a car engine, fix the holes in the driveway, kill rodents and other furry, evil varmits and help the kids with their math homework. I could never do that. I could also never do those dangSudoku puzzles that Tater and Mom do. I'd rather pull out my liver with salad tongs than try to solve one of those things. Bub can tell you who made a 4th down at 3:46pm on December 4, 1962, which field they were playing on, what kind of turf was on that field and if he'd had a bowel movement earlier in the day.

Of Mom's grandkids in school now, they're all 4 exhibiting strengths and weaknesses in certain areas. Abby can read on a 6th grade level, yet math makes her brain smoke and her stomach hurt. Sam scored a 99% on the math section of the Iowa Basic Skills test last spring. TotOne can draw and decorate and make art out of two pipe cleaners, a tampon and four nickles. TotTwo, well....we haven't found anything that he doesn't excel at yet - he's scary smart.

What I'm getting at is - everyone learns differently at different times in their lives. In some things we excel, in some we fail, in some we thrive, and in others we just get by.

Paul listened quietly while Tater and I discussed the usefulness of studying certain subjects in high school and college. I said that I couldn't wait to start taking some writing courses and that I was excited about Comp II. He asked what Comp II was and I said, "Basically - English."

He snorted a snort of utter disdain and stated, "I ain't never needed no English and I ain't never gonna need no English."



It's a good thing he's cute and can fix things.

5 comments:

Kellyology said...

Very funny... I think we all have different levels of "eye cue." Of course I think all of us females have a higher "eye cue" and thus the nickname of "lower life form" came out of my mouth one day when I was griping about the husband to a friend. But don't tell my son that! I hope to get all of those "lower life form" traits out of his head so that he too can have the superior "eye cue" of females...or at least as close as he can get. But just in case I fail, we'll keep that nickname to ourselves now shouldn't we?;)

Queen Of Cheese said...

Mr.Coach is all about numbers, formulas and statistics, he just can't spell any of them! I am the other way, I enjoy the written language but numbers suck.

RJ said...

words, good
numbers, bad

LLB said...

those sudoku puzzles... i want to rip them in teeney tiny pieces... and then burn them up! i love crosswords... but those number puzzles make me want to scream.
my husband can do math in his head too, faster than my fingers work the calculator, it's sickening! and no fair. i'm hoping our girls get this ability from him.

Anonymous said...

Dang I thought I learned him better than that back in high school. Another success story blown out of the water!!!!!

I have to send this anonymous. I keep forgetting what to put in the blogger Userneame thing.

Mrs. E

We....the people

Originally published in The Miami News-Record, July 2020 Everything is different now. I’m not just talking about masks and social distancing...