Jackie Wells-Fauth
I have lived my whole life knowing that one and one equals two. I even know the mathematical formula for that: 1 + 1 = 2. You have just experienced the sum total (forgive the pun) of my mathematical knowledge.
I went through 12 years of school and four years of college and I still have to take off my shoes to add up my grocery bill. I wasn’t in too bad a shape in elementary school. Back there, they usually left all numbers in math problems and the world was right with me. Then, I got into high school and they started substituting letters for numbers and writing these “formulas,” which looked something like this: r=2xf (6 squared + 10) to the fourth degree written over 9 pie (2×0). I would look at that formula and my best reaction would be: how the heck did “r” get from the alphabet to math hell????
A benevolent high school math teacher got me through high school and my math-savvy sister got me through simple college classes, but for both of them, they should get credit for leading the blind, because I stumbled through and retained none of it.
Worst of all was when logic problems came into college math. I am the least logical person I know and those logic problems were the equivalent of five days on a torture rack and then burning at the stake. If inability at logic were a capital offense, I’d be the first one led up to the guillotine! On a test, the question was: “State a problem and the logical conclusion.” My answer? “I am unable to understand logic. Therefore, logically, I cannot answer this question correctly.” The teacher’s response: “Nice try, 0 points.” I wasn’t too unhappy—he actually thought I was trying!
As a teacher (of English) my math inability has been somewhat of an embarrassment. Students in study hall will ask for help in math and my best reply is, “Uh…I wonder what the math teacher is doing right now. Here is a pass to go and see.”
Teachers are given the opportunity to take tickets at ball games and run concession stands. I volunteered enthusiastically for the ticket taking because I could bring my husband, the accountant, whose brain is a calculator, with me. Then came the night he wasn’t able to make it to the game and I took tickets alone. It doesn’t make the parents of your students very comfortable when you have to add up four tickets—two student and two adult—by writing it down on a piece of paper. Then, after you have come up with a reasonable price, they hand you a twenty-dollar bill and suddenly, in front of God and everyone, you have to make change! It was not a pretty sight–me, counting three different times to get the change correct and finally handing back the twenty and muttering, “Never mind, it’s free for you tonight.”
Concession stands were no better. If people would have just ordered a popcorn, I could handle collecting fifty cents. But, NO, people also wanted pop and nachos and candy bars and all kinds of other things. The night I decided concession stands weren’t for me was the night I kept telling the students working with me, “Stop talking to me! I’m trying to add up this food bill without paper, pencil or my toes, and I swear, if they pay for it with a twenty-dollar bill, my head will explode!”
The sad fact is that my math abilities are dismal and what’s even worse, I have come to accept it. If I see a math formula or a column of numbers, my eyes glaze over and there is a strange buzzing in my head. So for all of you out there, struggling with math, don’t be like me. Get a tutor, take an extra class or just practice numbers in your head. And whatever you do, if you see me in the concession stand, go to somebody else!
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