SISTER GREGORY’S PATH TO SEEKING PEACE AND JOY Part 2
(SEE THANK YOU THURSDAY FOR TEACHERS FOR THE BEGINNING OF THIS STORY)
About 4 sessions into this tutoring/hazing and I could almost walk into the. Little room without worrying that I might be struck by lightning or turned into a Pillar of salt. I was used to being drilled again and again with “sample problems” on these cassettes and pulled from thin air by this math machine otherwise known as Sister Gregory. She introduced something called a “multi variable equation) which I had always just called a problem with lots of letters that could stand for numbers in it.
So in this session—near the end and near. What I thought would be the last session she stopped me in the middle of a solution and said, “Does this work if x is 2 and y is 3?” I said “No way”. She says, “How many numbers have you already plugged in? “About 7 numbers for each”. She sapped the table and said “these are not functions.” I thought that’s good because I had no worldly idea what a function was. I muttered “I didn’t think so.” “Why are you solving I like a function? If you didn’t know your multiplication so well and weren’t fast with it, you couldn’t ever solve these things fast enough.” I was bewildered..... I was getting the right answers. “You are not using the concepts you’ve learned.” I said I was using. Multiplication or fast addition as you have explained it.” “You cant use a hammer for every job,” she said as she lowered her forehead. You might get by a year with your. Way of doing this and many students get by that way. But pretty soonball without a bat. I’m going to be in Fort Madison next week and I want you to study these sheets and come visit me down there for our final session.” She handed me two pages of concepts defined and formulas and told me these were copied from about page 100 in our Algebra I textbook (actually it was page 97, but who’s getting all egotistic here?).
So after studying these things for a. Couple of hours on a couple days (my absolute limit because I had bike riding to do music to play just loud enough to annoy my parents, and some other things to master before school started. One of these tasks was learning to shave and I’ll talk about that it a future effort. For now, I’ll just say shaving for me was like trying to shave nails off a 2x4 covered with a mine field of little greasy bits of greas and blood spread out in the path I needed to do the job.
Okay TMI
So I studied and went to the convent in Fort Madison, except when I got there we were going to meet in a dining room. This wasn’t just a simple wooden table thing. It was this fairly long but narrow “fancy” room with ta door at each end and mirrored walls all around that were designed to make this room seem less narrow. a friendly nun sat me down the room and said Sister Gregory would be there in a minute and told me to make myself comfortable. “Make myself comfortable?” My mind laughed at the possibility. So the nun who had led me in. Opened the opposite door and I expected Sister Gregory to come in—but. No. Two other fully adorned nuns came in and sat. Down at one end of the table and so there were. Three nuns sitting. Down talking about teaching and as hard as I tried to ignore them I couldn’t. Let’s face it, you couldn’t have ignored them either because this mirrored room created a fun house mirror/colidoscope of sisters. They were everywhere I looked and because the mirrored door was slightly open they were at every possible angle. It’s a good thing that smart phones didn’t exist I could not have resisted the temptation to get some pics of this and post them immediately. Thank God (and this was the perfect place to thanking God, Sister Gregory cam in and sat down. We talked about the terms and. Formulas. Then. We did this strange review covering nearly everything I had learned except. I had to solve a couple of problems using different concepts when possible. About 25 or 30 minutes in she closed her eyes and said, “now you have to promise me one thing.” I nodded. “You are going to be bored maybe for a semester and maybe a year...help. The other students if you can, but mostly watch your tongue...I’ve seen that smart Alec look in your eye and you will be tempted.”
Well that was the end of the last “private math lesson” I had from Sister Gregory, but it wasn’t my last lesson. I’m going to. Describe one more today and sum up.some things tomorrow.
A week or so into my last quarter as a senior Sister Gregory handed back what I figured was the next to last “math Analysis” exam. She gave me my test last. Now I hadn’t missed a single problem on a single. Assignment or test all year so I didn’t even turn the exam over to see. The score. Sister Gregory stood right in front of my desk and said “look at it.” In big red numbers there was a 95. A 95?!!! I shook my head and asked what problem/answer couldn’t you read? I knew my hand writing was horrible. ..this had to be a reading issue.
“You didn’t miss anything,” she said. I just figured. You would look at this and demand to talk with me.” That was. Very true. She asked me to come sit by her desk a minute. I did. Then she said quite softly...
“Jim, (what the hell? I had always been Mr. Whalen)—you have learned a lot of concepts and. Solved a lot of challenges in mathematics and if you should choose to do it you probably will solve more after you leave here. The thing is you have the tools to make this simple for you but in life things, mostly people and their. Troubles. Will. Not be so simple sometimes. Don’t get angry with them for not being simple or logical. Don’t get. Angry with yourself for seeing the world in the beautiful. Language of math, but learn other languages and start with the concepts. You might. Not understand. What I’m saying. Right now, but I think you will someday. Oh and remember this more than anything I have tried to teach you. You may quit going to church some day but don’t fret it as long as you remember you are not in the church the church is in you.”
Okay I understood that concept but I have had to practice the story problems behind that concept over and over for about 40 years and am still learning to recognize when to apply that concept nearly every day. Well we’ve reached the other side of the equals sign for today— one more brief entry about. This and teachers in general tomorrow.
Learn the Concepts
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