Skip to main content

I can do math.

I have had a bad relationship with math.
As a grade 2 student, I remember not really understanding what the teacher was getting at when she placed a handful of cubes on my desk and asked me to take some away.

Things became more fraught in grade 4 when I was one of 2 kids who was disqualified from a class taco party for not knowing all my times tables (we were eventually brought back into the fold).

I developed math anxiety which made things worse.

I excelled in other areas that involved language and I came to accept that I was just not a math person.

As a parent, I was determined not to pass on my anxiety about math to my daughter.  By then I was also running a business that involved daily math and I discovered things I actually liked about math.
I embraced math, outwardly at least, as much as possible.

One day this week, my daughter wanted me to help her with her math homework.
I took on the task with gusto, not betraying my underlying self-doubt. I stared for a very long time at the sheet full of percentages, unwavering in  my optimism.

I have always approached math backwards. I find knowing the answer to a few questions first helps me tip toe back towards how it can be solved.

Not logical really, or time efficient, but more satisfying and less scary.

68% of 168.

hmmmm.

I hummed and hawed, I used a calculator and then came up with a way to teach her (without a calculator) that is so easy that I really wish someone had taught me this way.

50 % of 168 is 84
10% of 168= 16.8( move the decimal one place to the left)
5% of 168=8.4(half of 10%)
1% of 168 is 1.68 (move the decimal 2 places of the left)

84+ 16.8+8.4+1.68+1.68+1.68= 114.24 (68%)

68% of 168=114.24

Not efficient. But not scary. I can do math, I can even teach it.
I guess the secret is to fake it until you make it!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Small Craft

I accompanied my mother-in-law to an appointment this week. On the paper, preparing her for the appointment, it invited her bring along something to read or a small craft. As soon as I heard about this invitation to bring a small craft into an otherwise austere waiting area, my mind started to do bouncing somersaults in many different directions. Googly eyes? Glue gun? Feathers? Play clay? Friendship braclets?
4 comments
Read more

Bringing her back

 As the first anniversary finally passed, I exhaled.  The sadness still nibbled away at the edges, but not clawing deep into my chest like it had been with varying degrees of ferocity in the twelve months previously.  She died in early summer, so I plunged into ocean and lakes and ate fruit straight from the plant.  The grief became softer, the folk songs carried me along in the potato patch we planted in therapy. But then, I started to miss her.  The deep grief kept her so close and now as the pressure eased, so did her presence.  I held my breath and decided to be really sad this morning just to see her face.  To sit in her prescence.  My breath became jagged as I cried for her, for us.   This Taylor Swift cover  by Marc Maron broke me right open this morning.  Here's to staying broken open enough to keep your loved ones close. And then, I walked into her garden. The garden she envisionied, planted over and over and still pre...
Post a Comment
Read more

The words coming out of my mouth

  These days I wear a mask. I don't wear a mask all of the time, only when I am indoors or unavoidably up close with people who I don't usually interact with.  I wear one when I am ordering things, or buying things or attempting to enjoy some form of public entertainment.  I cannot rely on reading others lips. My lips are hidden. We ask each other to repeat.  We move our eyes or our whole heads to try and enunciate more clearly.  I say fewer words, more carefully chosen words behind the mask. Sometimes that is helpful, sometimes that just causes more confusion. I walked into the woods. I did not need a mask.  I only saw a few other people and they were distanced. Masks were unnecessary. After so much talking and not talking and avoiding talking out loud I am forced to examine when I speak and when I choose not to. This is not a bad thing since I can be an insufferable chatter box, just a new thing for my brain to adjust itself to. When I am not standing aro...
2 comments
Read more