Math Curse

I am math deficient. Numbers just don't click with me, though I truly often wish they did. I've been reminded a lot recently of this sad fact of my character, and every time I am, I find myself bothered by it.

I didn't always despise math. In 3rd grade I was a wiz at my multiplication tables, and in 4th grade I pretty easily grasped the concept of fractions. But I must have missed the day in 5th grade when doing long division with "big" numbers was taught because after that things started going downhill.

I must have still tested well at the end of that year because in 6th grade I was placed in the advanced math class where I started to embark on that discipline called "Pre-Algebra." Man, though -- that was a miserable year. My poor teacher, kind Mrs. Hickman, worked hard with me, as did my dad almost every evening as I cried over my homework. Somehow, though, I survived the year well enough to be allowed to move onto Algebra 1 in 7th grade.

I lasted in 7th grade Algebra 1 approximately three-fourths of a semester before I begged my teacher to let me go back to Pre-Algebra. She let me, and by the end of that year I felt much more confident and ready to try Algebra 1 again in 8th grade.

I did fairly well in 8th grade Algebra 1. Maybe that was because my teacher looked like Abraham Lincoln and was consequently inspirational -- I'm not sure. Or, more likely, it was because we moved slower through the book -- so slowly, unfortunately, that we didn't finish the book by the end of the year so my teacher wouldn't let any of us move on to the next class, Geometry.

So in 9th grade I took Algebra 1. Again. I had a horrible teacher, though. Mr. Maenner (who, I might add, had features which were remarkably similar to those of a housefly), and I nearly failed his class. At the semester I transferred into sweet Mrs. Spangler's class and discovered that Algebra 1 didn't have to be so horrible.

In 10th grade I finally moved onto Geometry. (You should realize here, that if I'd stayed on track, I would have been taking Calculus.) Mrs. Spangler was my teacher again. I loved Geometry. I actually understood it, and I had fun -- which was a new concept. I think my first A's in math were in Geometry.

It was required at my high school to take at least 2 years of math to graduate. But because I was on the "university-bound" track, I needed 3-4 years. So my junior year I took Algebra 2. My teacher was so-so, as was my understanding of the concepts taught, but I didn't enjoy it. In fact, I turned one of my favorite novels into a screenplay during class that year. I just wanted to maintain B's in class, and I did, and that was that. And then I decided that 3 years of high school math was enough for me.

I took the ACT at the end of my junior year and scored a 24 on the math section -- surprisingly well for someone of my ability. But it was enough to exempt me from the math requirement at Ricks College. So I graduated with my associates degree without taking math. (Oddly, though, my campus job while I was a student there was to help two teachers in the math department.)

I then transferred to BYU where I discovered that I only needed one more French class to exempt me from the higher math requirement. So of course I took that route. And it was great. I completed my bachelor's degree (in the two very non-math-y subjects of History and English teaching) without having taken a math class since my junior year of high school.

I can't boast, though, that I am incredibly proud of this feat -- amazed, yes, but not proud. It is sometimes very embarrassing to be so math deficient . In the book Reviving Ophelia, author Mary Pipher brings forth a good excuse that I could always fall back on -- that adolescent girls often lose their confidence as they struggle through puberty and a loss of the ability to do math well and enjoy it seems to fall first. However easy to do, I don't really want to lay the blame for my math deficiency on my difficult (i.e. normal) adolescence.

I would, however, like to start over. I want to "get" math, I really do. I guess it's good, then, that I married someone who "gets" it -- and has patience with me. I hoping that one of these days, once his thesis is turned in (this weekend!!) and he's secured a post-grad job, that he'll sit down with me and teach me. And then, perhaps, we will be able to rule the world!

This post brought to you by the fabulously hilarious book, Math Curse, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. You would all be wise to read this book over the weekend. Trust me.