My Math Story

Why do all good (significant) memories have a story?  Stories create the connections we cling to.  They create the fabric that makes the memories come alive and that make the words real.

My math story probably started when I was in 4th grade.  I remember that the teacher had a multiplication “tracker” on the wall.  It listed every student’s name and the facts that they had mastered.  Usually the mastery got a gold star.  So we watched each other’s progress.  It was significant, but it wasn’t.  We quietly competed to be at the top of the pack.  Not necessarily the one ahead of everyone else but at least among the top.  Except…. there were a few in the class, who weren’t.  They
got stuck around their 3’s and 4’s.  I wondered why.  The year ended.  I never found out.

In 6th grade my teacher didn’t know what to do with a group of five or six of us.  We had finished all the math in the book, in the grade.  It was February.  So, she sat us at the back table and gave us 7th grade books she had dug out of who knows where.  She told us to do the work.  So we did.  On our own.  I’m not sure how much extra I learned, but pretty much figured that I could figure it out OK.  Except for the first chapter on sets.  Set theory was unlike the other stuff.  It was “new math”.  Sets were the only thing that was new.

From 7th grade through 10th my math story followed a pattern.  First quarter was getting into the routine.  I’d get a B.  Second quarter I figured I could do better and work my butt off.  I’d get an A.  Third quarter, I was tired of working so hard.  I usually got a C.  4th quarter, I knew I was better than the C, I got a B.  This happened over and over and over.  Probably not a coincidence.  The teachers were pretty much the ones who stood out for me.  Eighth through tenth grade I was in advanced math classes.  I worked!  The math teachers were unique.  It was never my favorite class but it wasn’t the worst either.  Then in 11th grade, I decided I was tired of “working hard”.  So I switched out of advanced for regular.  I learned nothing.  It was part of the story because I thought easy would be fun.  Yet my grade pattern continued and it still wasn’t fun.

That led to 12th grade where the year started with trigonometry.  It was my worst math experience ever.  I didn’t like it.  I didn’t understand it.  And I didn’t like the teacher.  She didn’t like me.  OK.  So, maybe math wasn’t my thing.

Having made it through Analytic Geometry in High School and getting college credit for it, I decided that I was smarter than my placement exam and I’d jump into Calculus my freshman year.  Now, today the idea of not having calculus in high school means that you are behind.  When I was in high school, that wasn’t an option.  So, 8 a.m. my freshman year, I walked into a Calc 1 class of about 35 others and we came face to face with the chair of the math department.  He explained that he was tired of grade inflation and that we would have to earn the grade we received.  I was naive.  I had no idea what he was implying.  But for 4 days each week I’d show up to my 8 a.m. math class and usually have no clue what was going on.  When he confronted another student about the amount of time he’d spend on our homework problems, and with the end result that maybe 2 hours wasn’t enough.  And I had 3 or 4 other classes and was working… I knew that I was in over my head.  The class ended with a less than glowing F on my grades.  A retake in the next quarter ended with a B.  I could do it, just maybe not on the first try.  Spring quarter, Calc. 2, freshman year….again was an F.  When I considered that and my computer classes that had me taking boxes of key punch cards to the computer lab at 11 at night….just to be told I had a logic error.  I was done.  My math story ended.  Or so I thought.

A year and a half later, on the brink of having no clue how I was going to graduate, I walked into a class that was math for elementary majors.  The reason why our algorithms worked fascinated me.  Using egg cartons as fractions…brilliant!  Hmmm.  Why didn’t my classmates think so?

If I could put an intermission here, I would.  Because the story picks up when I used similar egg cartons with my 2nd graders.  I was far more excited than they were, but they weren’t disinterested and they were learning.  Both things a plus!  And every time I would create a lesson for them and then go through the teaching thought process, I would learn.  Still more curious.

The hallmarks of the rest of the story go like this:

I decided to get a master’s in secondary math ed because…. that ‘s where the jobs were.  In the process, I had a professor who was a math historian and had been a graduate assistant with Einstein.  He asked why we DID math!  His acceptable answer was that it was for its beauty.  I’d been teaching for a few years and still didn’t see beauty.  But, OK.

That degree led me to a job as an instructor at the university and I was hooked.  The work I was doing fascinated me.  I was told I’d need a PhD to keep doing the work.  My response, Sure!  Sign me up.  What do I need to do???

Funny thing is that what I needed to do was to incorporate the equivalent of a master’s in mathematics, with all the rest of the courses for the degree.  Thirty year old me who could see herself doing the job nodded like it was no big deal.  It’s funny how a goal and a bit of maturity make the content a little easier.  I was still not a star.  In fact, there are times I down right struggled.  But I got to the finish line (and through all the math).

So what?  Well, sometimes things just don’t add up.  And sometimes you just need to look for patterns.  I feel I’m getting a bit too long winded, so I’ll continue tomorrow with why this matters….