Math Geek

Posted by danleone on January 27th, 2009 filed in Baby Goats, parenting

Despite the fact that I am not a mathematician by trade, I would play one on TV. I have always loved math and sometimes wish I could go back in time and tell my high school guidance councilor her to stick it in her “pi-hole.” After I took one of those career tests to determine which profession best suited my personality, she told me that I should become a “Forest Ranger” and proceeded to hand me literature of colleges in the area (ie Brazil) that specialized in Forest Rangery. My dreams of numbers were shattered.

Up until that point, I was certain I was going to become a mathematician, physicist, astronomer or aerospace engineer. I was on the honor roll and in the honor society at a very well respected technical school in Boston. I had studied calculus on my own while in high school. All my friends were planning the next phase of their journey and applying to MIT, Harvard or Blaine’s Hair School. I, on the other hand, just had the rug pulled out from under me. But I persevered anyway and attended Northeastern University for Electronic Engineering (these were in the days when computers were as big as refrigerators and programming involved punch cards…bajillions of them).

But forever in the back of my head I kept remembering “Forest Ranger.” (yes, you are supposed to be laughing hysterically right now). A couple of years later and I learned the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. I dropped out of school as I was beginning to FLUNK, yes FLUNK some of my math and physics classes (if only they had classes on how to light a campfire using only a grub). Thus began my downward spiral in life that I will share with you in future posts (after all, I am up to two posts this year!).

So when my 11 year old comes home with math homework, I am thrilled to be able to offer some assistance. I am confident in my math abilities. A couple of nights ago, his homework consisted of making up 4 pages of math worksheets that he did not do back in November for various reasons. The topic was called Order of Operations, also known as Order of Precedence. It is a simple set of rules that determine the order in which a series of operations should happen in math. For example:

2 + 3 x 2 = ?

Well, if you simply go from left to right, then you would get 10 (2+3=5. 5×2=10). The reality is that the Order of Operations mandate the hierarchy that supersedes simply moving from left to right. The correct answer is 8. It is 2 + (3 x 2) or 2 + 6.  A quick Google search shows that this order has been the standard since at least the 1500′s. The “kids these days” have a mnemonic called PEMDAS. Which stands for:

Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

So, no matter how complex the problem, this is the algorithm used to solve it. I learned this in junior high and had it reinforced every year and even into college while learning programming.

Now, if the problem is:

3 x (2+5) x 6(4+8) + 20/(5-1) = whatever the hell it equals

…then everyone in the world will has an opportunity to get it correct and know with confidence the rest of the planet got the same answer.

Back to my son, since no one is reading about Order or Operations anyway. He was working, rather diligently I might add, on his homework. I was very proud of his focus, at least his definition of focus. Then, when he was halfway through the homework, he asked me a simple question. I showed him my answer using the process above. He looked at me and said “What are you doing? You can’t just add parenthesis wherever you want. It will change the answer!” I told him you can add parenthesis wherever it made sense to keep things together. I quickly glanced through all his answers and realized he had done each and everyone of them incorrectly. I told him that. This was the beginning of the end for him. At this point, he proceeded to justify his answers, screechingly, by stating this is the way he learned it. He then proceeded to tell me that I had learned it the “old fashioned way,” screechingly. He then continued on his screeching rampage and suggested that A. How could I have allowed him to do it the wrong way and B. Why do I always have to criticize him.

We are no longer on the topic of math. We are no longer interested in “getting over it” and correcting the errors. We have devolved into a screechfest. I say “we” on purpose. At this point in time, I literally dropped to his level and joined in, as if we were caught in a whirlpool and I was wearing a lead life vest. He continued along this course for well over 20 minutes. Never once accepting responsibility.

We were no longer being productive and in fact had downgraded to destructive, so I sent him to bed; literally the only thing I could have done that would not have been the equivalent of a lion eating their young. He stormed off, disgusted by me while I stormed off disgusted by me too. “Can you believe that kid?!”, I went on for the next 20 minutes.

After the house quieted down, I remembered the importance of this homework and how much effort he put into despite getting each and every answer wrong. I decided to try something I have never done before. I am usually an early riser. Mike has to be up by 6 in order to get to school on time-ish. I woke up at 4 and grabbed his homework, strewn about all over the living room and I found one of those big, pink and trapezoidal erasers and began erasing each and every one of his answers. For some reason, my baby goats have never learned to erase with finesse. They often leave the paper in worse condition than if they had just left it alone.

I erased each answer and calmly put parenthesis around a few of the problems in order to organize Mike. I then tip-toed upstairs at 5AM and whispered calmly in his ear. I told him that I had put on some water for tea, heated the kitchen (a common excuse for not wanting to get out of bed) and that no one else was awake. “Michael, please get up now and we can get this done together. I promise; no fighting.”

He rolled over and looked at me and said “Not now Dad. You should have told me you were going to do this last night. It is too early” and he turned away. I walked back downstairs and nearly cried. It was not anger this time. It simply was a stunned feeling that my 11 year old has not only bested me…he has bested himself.

I sat down at the kitchen table staring at his homework; confident that he could do it….equally confident that I could do it for him without anyone being the wiser. The internal debate raged on in my head until 5:30. Michael came downstairs, shaggy doggedly and said “Dad, I am ready now.”

I sat next to him and watched him write each number down and finally complete his work in time for school.

This, the longest post ever written, served only a single purpose: simply, to tell you how proud I am of that boy.

Now, if I can just get him to brush his teeth with toothpaste.