THANK YOU THURSDAY
THANKS TO ALL THE TEACHERS WHO
Seeking Peace and Joy is a journey of working with fear and joy to encounter your own meanings, other people, and the physical world. If that journey was taken without guides, mentors, and supporters the difficulty level would be somewhere between staggering and virtually impossible. In short, without dedicated teachers in schools and in other environments, we’re screwed.
I don’t have the space or time to highlight all the teachers who have provided the tools for me to explore and interpre t experiences. I can, however, “profile” one to start.
I am blind/visually impaired/have low vision (no that doesn’t;t mean I can only see people. Below the knee) and this created several obstacles and created some gifts during my early education. Almost everyone can imagine the barriers so I won’t put out that list. The benefits are worth reviewing. I was often seated in the. Front seat in class making it easier to pay attention or at least to pretend I w2as. It also made it easier to hear the classroom from the vantage point of the teacher. I could. Hear the teacher’s nonverbal auditory responses to the answers provided by my classmates—the subtle and not so subtle changes in breathing etc. I also was afforded the chance to listen to the teachers without the goings-on that transpired in the middle and back of classrooms. This ultimately allowed me to dervelop some learning tools that others probably could not access. Not seeing took away a valuable source of input, however, not having to process. Almost limitless visual stimuli, I could focus on what I heard and was able to develop a memory processing skill that s serves and curses me to this day. Mostly.I count it among my greatest blessings/gifts.
Well...when I was. Heading into my Freshman year in high school, I (and my Mom and a middle school librarian) made it known that the math teachers had not done a particularly good job of verbally explaining the concepts that would prepare me to move forward with success. People thought “I was pretty good with numbers,” but my grades didn’t really reflect it. Well, bottom line my future “Math Guru” better known as Sister Gregory decided to find out for herself the two things she needed to know to do her job. She decided to request/require me to have some lessons with her before starting. High school so that the school could choose the best starting point for my education. She somehow obtained some math cassettes and we schedules some appointments where she was to assess my skill level, perhaps fill in some gaps, and send me on my way.
So my mom drags my greasy-haired pimpled-face somewhat less than enthusiastic soul into a small room in a convent to begin. If you’ve never sat face to face with a veteran Catholic nun in a room containing a simple light, a crucifix, a small wooden tablee, two wooden chairs and a cassette player waiting to be judged on something, my description of the emotions associated with that situation can’t possibly be of any practical value here.
So it began. Having no book. Open se starts with “I’m going to ask you some things to start with and then we’ll go from there. It will be about thirty. Questions and I want you to give an answer when you. Can and when you can’t tell me what you are thinking.” I didn’t dare say anything about what I was thinking just then especially in a convent. The questions started. They were what used to be called “multiplication facts.” You know. 2 times 2 except they were. Ranging from there up until about 20 times 20. I knew these from memory except for maybe a couple like 17. Times 19 which 4 months later I would. Come to think of as s18 squared. Minus 1 and since 18 squared is 324 then the answer of course is 323. We crusied through multiplication and then she reversed course to addition. I was quick to answer the three and four digit problems. We were about 220 questions in and then she stopped. IShe asked if I had any questions so far. “Not really except...” Then I went silent afraid to ,eat my natural smart mouth show through. So what was your question/ she smiled. “Why did we do mul.tplication the addition? I asked. “We were doing addition all the time.”
What was I supposed to do argue with a nun? she then said in a very simple manner, “I’ll explain at the end of our time today. I just thought, “okay we’ve been at this about 40 minutes—only about 20 left. We did some subtractions, division, and fractions etc for what seemed. To be about ten minutes. Then she picked up a cassette out of this folder that looked like a book and said. “You are fast enough—now woyou have to decide if you want to take algebra or not”. I remained silent but, of course I was thinking “wasn’t that what I came here for you to decide?” We She says, “we are going to listen to this cassette for a few minutes now unless you already know the foil method.” I mumbled..”foil method?” I knew how to put that silver stuff over a casserole dish to cook with or in the case of Tupperware that you could no longer find the lid for (which is a majority of the containers more than six months old.
“No matter” she said as she popped in the first cassette and then started fast forwarding.... “that’s just a bunch of stuff by the author” she said and smiled completely throwing me off psychologically. “He goers o and on like he invented mathematics or something and we don’t need to hear all that.” For five minutes we sat in this quiet room listening to the table of contents for an introduction to algebra textbook—certainly the activity I had dreamed of doing doing my summer vacation. I recognized about 30 percent of the concepts and that seemed okay.
she clicked the stop button and asked. How much I knew in this book. I told her. That I knew about 10 percent. She nodded and said “that’s good enough then —your mom will be here soon so let’s finish up.” I nodded.
“We’ll see how this goes next time, but I can teach you and you will be ready for Algebra by the start of school. You do listen well and don’t ask bad questions so far. Before school starts you will understand that everything is. 1’s. And zeros and that everything else is addition. You don’t. Need to understand this now, but I’m going to say it so that you can think about it between now and next Tuesday. Multiplying. 2x3 is the same as adding 2+2+2 right? Division is just the reverse just like - is the reverse of + so what is six divided. By two? I started to say. 6-2- and she cut me off..”Yesa you count the. Number of times you can subtract. You’ll get this”. “Algebra” is just a beautiful and fast way to add and I think in the next few you will discover it and start to see things differently.
It was months before I really started to see things differently, but after a mont or five weeks of these individual lessons, I was pretty sure this teacher wouldn’t take any excuses from me and would demand my attention to mastery.
I’ve written about enough for one day, but not about this teacher, so tune in tomorrow for the second installment of my “Sister Gregory Experience.
I think it will take at least one plus one plus one or so entries to do this justice.
Thank a teacher today!
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