Math was my worst subject area in high school. I think I got a B- if that in 9th grade Algebra, but I can't remember, if I ever did know, any of the formulas for working out things like story problems.
10th grade Geometry with Mr. Swank was a disaster. I never applied myself to learning theroms? and quorums? and any other ums, and 4 to 6 weeks in I was totally lost. White haired 70 year old Mr. Swank had me go up to the board to work out a problem. I stood there ridged, pointing my nice white piece of chalk at an empty space.
"What part of the problem don't you understand?" he asked me after several very uncomfortable minutes (I could count seconds). "Well sir, I don't even know what I don't know here." I replied. He had me sit down, never to visit the board again. That was a one semester, very low grade class for me.
Many years later, this Wednesday night in fact, after checking my road test schedule for Thursday and finding an open day, I access the substitute teaching openings and find one available, in Special Ed Math! - Algebra, Pre-Algebra, Geometry. So being a brave soul, I take it.
I kinda think this is God's sense of humor. After 44 years I finally end up in the right math classes. Kids would ask me a question and I would say, "How do you think this should be done" or "Looks pretty good to me." There were warm up problems I was given to write on the board, and after watching a few of the brighter special ed students work out the answers on the board I would ask the class, "Does this look good to everyone?", and if they all agreed we would go onto the next problem.
I could relate to a conversation I overheard in the Pre-Algebra class today. 1st student: "I'm illiterate." 2nd student: "What?" 1st student repeats: "I'm illiterate." 2nd student repeats: "What?" 1st student: "I don't know anything."
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