I always have been and always will be a words kinda gal. I
love the sound of words, the beauty of them on paper and how they sound when
spoken. I love the power behind them, the things they can accomplish, the
feelings they can evoke. Numbers just can’t do that. Numbers are solid,
logical, tangible… and insanely frustrating. Words can’t always be captured by
the voice and have many different meanings to many different people. The number
five is always going to equal the number five. But say any word – any word you
can think of – to five different people and it will likely be interpreted five
different ways.
Numbers are just not the primary language spoken by my
brain. It took from 3rd grade to 6th grade before I could
finally do multiplication without breaking out into a cold sweat. I took
Algebra I my Freshman year and passed it by the skin of my teeth. I started my
Sophomore year in Algebra II and after one week of that nonsense I marched into
Mr. Lippe’s office with arms crossed, determined look on my face, demanding
that he remove me at once from that vile class and put me into something else,
anything else. He moved me over to Business Math, a class I passed with an A. I
went on to end my high school math career with Accounting I and II, passing both
with A’s. It’s not that I can’t do math, it’s that I just
prefer not to. The add/subtract/multiply/divide kind of math is do-able. Please
do not put letters in there. That’s where it gets all jumbly – like a really
sick and twisted can of algebra soup.
Last year our son made it through Algebra I with a resounding
A at the end of the year. The program we use is computer-based, thorough, and
very easy to understand, but starting out this year in Algebra II has been
challenging to say the least. He suffers from the same phenomenon I do:
Mathematical Amnesia. If I learn a math concept I can do it all day long. But
if I sleep? You can forget about me remembering a dadgum thing the next day.
I’ve been learning Algebra II right along with him this
year, a task that has gotten easier in my old age – a fact I find very strange
considering I have maternal oatmeal brain and am on medication for nerve pain
that messes with my memory. This past week they introduced “distance” word
problems. One might think I, a word person, could do word problems. One would
be wrong. Oh. So. Wrong. I loathe word
problems. They never, ever make sense to me.
“If Bob is on a subway car traveling at 15mph and Douglas is on a rocket
ship to Mars traveling at 27mph, how long will it take the two of them to
create a macramé sculpture of the Mona Lisa using only their toes?” That’s how
I interpret every single word problem I ever encounter.
It took my son and me nearly 30 minutes to figure out a
particularly difficult problem one day and when we eventually got it right, you
should’ve seen the high-fiving and hollering that was executed right there at
the dining room table. Then we got into my secret stash of chocolate. And soon
after that he decided that college didn’t seem like a real fun option for him
after all and “homeless street person” sounded safely math-free. I patted his
leg, handed him another Reese’s Cup and said, “Or you could always just
homeschool your own kids, son. And learn it at 41 like I am.”
I’m really not looking forward to telling my husband that
our soon-to-be-homeless son won’t be blessing us with grandchildren.
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