Count on Math to Teach You About Life

Did you ever face a math problem that taught you a life lesson?

Last week, a Facebook friend posted the equation above with an invitation to solve it.

Four days ago, I pressed the paper airplane emoji to send my answer, and smugly expected she would reply, “Great job Judi; you know your math.”

Instead, she gently replied, “Look more closely.”

“Wow,” I thought.

My only recourse was to send her a smiley face and do as she instructed. To my surprise, I noticed a small detail in the second row that, of course, changed the answer.

The next day I submitted my updated answer, again expecting a praiseful response.

She simply replied to my comment, “Nope.”

I sent my smiley face.

I quickly recalculated and sent another answer.

”NO,” she responded later that night in a large, colorful, animated gif.

“Dang. This is getting embarrassing,” I thought.

I questioned my memory of the associative, distributive, and commutative properties in algebra. Not only couldn’t I recall, I had to google the right spelling for “commutative” for this blog post.

“Jeez,” I thought. “Do you read the formula left to right? Can you read right to left? Do you do group like actions first?”

The next morning as I looked at Facebook and contemplated my fourth attempt, I realized my Facebook friend’s friendly little math challenge was wearing on me, but I was determined to take another swing at the Facebook post.

By this time, my friend had amassed over 400 comments. I was sure that half the exchanges were her “look more closely” and “nope” comment. It was obvious I wasn’t the only flounder my Facebook friend had hooked. I was feeling like a mere fish in a pack of shoalers rather than the leader of the school.

I shook my head and thought, “It’d sure be nice to talk to Dad right now. He could reteach basic algebra to me lickety split.”

Instead of answering my request for help, my thoughts moseyed back to Mrs. Waind, my fifth grade teacher who introduced me to Algebra.

Mrs. Waind was a sweet 30, 40, or 50-something woman (hey I was 11–all adults were about the same age to me) who wore a soft white sweater over her shoulders that buttoned at her neck and pearl necklace. Thinking back through those 51 years, her kind face and stature blurred with the face and stature of Canadian singer Anne Murray. You may remember some of the Second Alto, Nova Scotia native’s mega hits, including “Snowbird” and “Could I have This Dance.”

As I honed in on the memory, the murkiness dissipated, revealing to me a recollection of an event that shook me once and was now coming back to nudge me again.

Mrs. Waind was at the chalkboard writing out a math problem. She turned and asked who among us could figure out the answer.

My classmate, Eric, and I shot up our hands and swung them wildly about like Titanic passengers floating in the Pacific trying to flag down a distant rescue raft. We were desperate to be called on by Mrs. Waind.

I sat at the front of the class. Mrs. Waind had assigned our seats, in last name, reverse alphabetical order so kids with last names that started with letters at the back of the alphabet were seated in the front.

It was my one advantage over Eric B.

“Judi, what do you think?”

I blurted out the answer and smiled a big toothy grin.

Mrs. Waind smiled back. “That’s good Judi.“

I felt special.

Before lunch that day, Mrs. Waind asked me to join her and my classmate Michelle at Mrs. Waind’s desk. Michelle was my friend, but we didn’t do too much together. That was partly because I didn’t play with classmates after school since most of them lived on the East side of University in the newer, bigger houses. Like everyone else in class however, I knew Michelle was one of the popular kids. She was nice, funny, an excellent swimmer and had natural leadership.

Michelle smiled and I smiled. Mrs. Waind smiled.

“Whew,” I thought. “If this is because I’m in some sort of trouble, at least it’s starting out on a good foot.”

“Michelle told me she’s noticed how good you are at algebra and has a favor to ask you,” Mrs. Waind said.

“Yeah Stoa. I’m just not getting it and you seem to. I wondered if we could stay in from lunch recess to go over the math properties to help me get ready for the test tomorrow,” Michelle said.

“Wow, Michelle wants me to help her. Me? Help her? Cool!” I thought.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea that the two of you help each other,” Mrs. Waind said.

“Oh sure,” I said enthusiastically.

After lunch, Michelle and I went back into our empty classroom. It was neat to be in there by ourselves and with Mrs. Waind’s permission.

“Okay. How about we start out by writing out the three properties,” I said trying to channel my parents’ teaching techniques. “Do you remember the three?”

“Yeah, Stoa, I got that part,” Michelle said. “It’s the Associative, Distributive, and Commutative.”

“Cool. That’s a really good start,” I said and wrote the three words on separate lines. “Let’s start with Associative. Can you say the formula?”

“Well that’s part of the problem. I know all three properties have a, b, and c. And some are addition, and some are multiplication. I forget which one is which. And why we have to use a, b, c instead of numbers doesn’t make sense.”

“I see what you mean. But I know you Michelle, you’ll get it,” I said. I wrote down ‘a b c = a b c.’

“So here’s how I remember the Associative property. Associative starts with an A and so does Addition. So when I see all plus signs I know the property is Associative,” I explained. I added in the plus signs, ‘a + b + c = a + b+ c.’

“Hey, that’s good Stoa. A is for Addition,” Michelle said with a grin. “That makes sense.”

“Cool. So to finish out the formula, let’s just add in the parentheses. Do you know where they go?” I asked and held out the chalk for Michelle.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know why,” Michelle said and quickly bracketed the b and c on the left side of the formula and the a and b on the right side of the formula.

“Michelle, you know more than you think you do,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Let’s add some real numbers now underneath the formula and see how it works.”

For the next 40 minutes, Michelle and I wrote down the formulas, talked about them, and applied numbers for real examples under the abc formulas.

When Mrs. Waind and the kids started entering the classroom, Michelle and I had chalk on our hands, faces and clothes. We had filled a third section of the room-wide chalkboard with our scribbles, and we had filled our faces with double-wide grins.

“Stoa, you’re a genius,” Michelle said. “You’re the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.”

I was thrilled that Michelle had learned the algebra properties, and secretly more thrilled that she gave me a nickname from a Kurt Russel Disney movie a bunch of us girls had seen together at a birthday party a few weeks before.

The next day, Michelle got an A on the test! She graciously and publicly credited me with her breakthrough in math. Kids nicknamed me “The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes” and “Peabody.” Michelle even told her parents, and her parents and Mrs. Waind told my parents. All was right with the world!

Wasn’t it? No. Not really.

On that same test that Michelle aced, I ended up getting a C- and I think that Mrs. Waind was being kind to give me that high of a grade.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Waind returned the tests to all the students, and everyone put on their coats and boots to go home. She smiled and shook her head and asked me to stay after.

“What do you think happened,” she said with a kind laugh. “Judi, you knew this stuff inside and out.”

“I thought I did,” I said, feeling like I wanted to cry. But at the same time I felt safe, and was interested in exploring with Mrs. Waind what had happened.

“Let’s take a look at your work,” she said.

As we looked over my answers, and talked about it, we discovered a few things about me and that test:

1. I was excited to see how well Michelle did and hoped the best for her. I had been really happy helping her.

2. I wanted to be first to finish the test to prove that I was the smartest in the class.

3. In my rush and arrogance, I confused myself and missed details of the problem statements which led to incorrect answers in almost every question.

Wow.

I chuckled at the memory. I felt warmth in my heart for Michelle, Mrs. Waind, Eric, and all my classmates from 51 years before. And it served as life lessons that may ring true for you too:

1. Slow down when you run into problems. Look not only at the overall concept but at the details.

2. Look for ways to help others in these turbulent times, because it will them and make you happier too.

3. Watch for self-aggrandizement; you can end up forgetting all the good stuff and failing in the moment.

Oh by the way. With those lessons in mind, I looked over the Facebook math quiz again and realized in my rush to show Facebook folks that I was fast at getting the answer, I had missed another detail in my Facebook friend's problem statement.

I have submitted my fifth answer and await her smiley face. 👀

Judi Stoa's Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others

Website: Judi Stoa Books

Blog: Donchyaknow Life Lessons