Growing up at 110 Flamingo Street, I learned math many different ways, both in and out of school. When math was just numbers it was easy to understand. When words were added, math got complicated and sometimes extremely painful.
Just how could math be painful? Well, Dear Reader, the answer to that question is Down the Street Bully Brad. See, I told you math gets complicated when you add words.
The earliest memories I have of learning math come from my dad. Some Saturday mornings he’d wake me up to go with him on his route selling household furnishings door to door. For lunch we’d always visit the Varsity where the best hotdogs, Big Orange, and onion rings were found. Late in the afternoon, we’d stop by the farmer’s market to trade dad’s homegrown vegetables for fresh fruit. Before making it home, he’d fill up the van with gas.
Throughout the day, Dad used math to count money, but never used a pen and paper. All his calculations were in his head. He taught me to “see” numbers. Being able to see numbers was both helpfully and harmful in school as I got older. Seeing numbers in my head helped me in Old Mrs. Crabtree’s third-grade class at Mount Olive Elementary School.
During testing, Old Mrs. Crabtree didn’t want us to show our work on scrap pieces of paper. She said that was a waste of paper. Instead, all she wanted was the correct answer. Math in her class was easy for me because Dad had taught me how to see numbers. Unfortunately, not having to show work changed when I reached Briarwood High School home of the Mighty Buccaneers.
Mister Myers was my ninth-grade geometry teacher and was all about angles. Although he made us show our work, seeing all those angles in my head was almost as easy as seeing numbers. Thanks to Dad, I was well prepared for his class and made A’s on all of the tests.
That entire year, I dreamed I’d be a math teacher after graduating from college. Sadly, my dream was short-lived. That dream was crushed in Corneal Baker’s Algebra II class.
The first problem on the first test in Corneal Baker’s class I still remember to this very day. The question was: A train left Atlanta for Texas traveling at 50 miles an hour with 50 people aboard. A train left Texas traveling 30 miles an hour with 80 people aboard. When they met, if five people got off and eight people got on, which would get to New York first, how many people would be on the trains and how long would it take?
Now I know this doesn’t make any sense, and to me, trying to solve a math problem from a story about trains didn’t either. My answer was simple and set the tone for the grades I received in his class.
Because I had to show my work on a scrap piece of paper, I wrote: They all would’ve gotten to New York faster if they just took an airplane, and the total number who reached New York were the total number of folks who got off the plane.
In Corneal Baker’s class, understanding word problems was impossible for me. Just like understanding Mom math.
Mom had a math all her own. For example, she said, “I’ve told you kids a thousand times to stop picking on your sister.” We added it up and knew we had only picked on her five times that day.
When she was doing laundry, she’d come into our bedrooms and say, “I’ve told you kids a million times to stop stuffing you dirty clothes under your beds.” When it was bedtime she would say it was nine o’clock when we knew it was only eight. I attribute her inability to know what time it was to her mom math.
Finally, math can actually be painful. When I brought home grades from Corneal Baker’s Algebra II class and showed them to Dad, things got painful for me. At the end of the year, what was my final grade in his class? Let’s just say it was extremely painful.
Even so, the most painful math didn’t come from inside a classroom, but rather right outside of one. Complements of Down the Street Bully Brad.
Walking home from school most every afternoon, somewhere along the way, I’d be jumped and beaten up by Bully Brad. He had an odd habit of counting his punches and telling me how he wouldn’t stop until he got to ten.
The only thing that stopped his barrage was Bubba Hanks, Goofy Steve, or Neighbor Thomas jumping in and fending him off. Three friends against one bully was math even Bully Brad understood.
But I must say the math that has brought me the most enjoyment in my life I’ve learned from Little One.
Little One is almost 2 years old, and she counts everything. She counts our cats – we have two. She counts her toys – she has two. Even at Twin Lakes, she counts the ducks – two. She has many more toys and they are many more ducks than just two. She counts, “One, two” and then starts over.
Her math is easy for me to understand and it’s just adorable.
[Rick Ryckeley, who lives in Senoia, served as a firefighter for more than two decades and has been a weekly columnist since 2001. His email is storiesbyrick@gmail.com. His books are available at www.RickRyckeley.com.]
