I have been coming down pretty hard on parents in recent columns. Moms who burst into classrooms quarreling with teachers, dads who try to restrict what our kids can read, fathers and mothers who put the needs of their own children above all the other kids in the classroom put together. I have also expressed outrage regarding folks in positions of educational authority—a candidate for superintendent of public education for example—who doesn’t believe in either education or the public.
Whereas I have repeatedly promised that these essays would live in a kinder, gentler space, a place where we could share five minutes each week, reminiscing, enjoying, smiling about how just plain wonderful it is to be parents.
I’ll update Kids Say The Darnedest Things, Art Linkletter’s 1960’s TV show. Kids are the darnedest things. They are outrageous, enjoyable, hilarious, precious. You love your partner, sure. But you wouldn’t hesitate for a second to give a kidney or take a bullet for your kid.
I am hardly the first to point out that these are trying times, enough disgruntlement in the Public Square to drown a full-grown cow. Folks who used to shake their heads and smile at the political beliefs of their neighbors now shake their fists and scurry home to post hateful, hurtful, diatribes. The only thing on which people can agree lately is how wrong the other side is, how we no longer live in homes with open doors but conceal ourselves in silos with turrets for windows. The only thing locked up tighter than our doors are our opinions.
I wish I could help you with that.
In 1971, The New Seekers sang…
I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company.
Never mind singing. Heck, I’d be pleased if I could teach my neighbors to stop being disgusted with one another long enough to organize a potluck picnic and a co-ed softball game.
So for what it’s worth, I have what I hope you’ll agree is an uplifting report: The teachers at conference last week of the Mathematical Association of America were all on the same team. Every last person in the lecture rooms, in addition to eating, sleeping, and breathing math, was eager to share their experiences and—here’s a word you don’t read every day—listen. The vibe was all about helping one another teach math. Math teachers perfecting their craft like gymnasts refining their routines.
I know, I know. You hate math. Your unpleasant experience with the all things mathematical is exceeded in its misery only by daily unanesthetized colonoscopies. You were asked—forced?—to repeatedly “find x”, as if x had done something wrong, was ensconced in a cave somewhere and—if found—was to be remanded to the authorities. Run x! you may have felt. Be free! Year after year you endured algebra and geometry lectures that made Ben Stein’s parody of a history teacher in Ferris Beuler’s Day Off—the Smoot Tariff Act, anybody?—seem scintillating by comparison.
Not these educators. They spent three days at a conference helping each other find ways to encourage their students to—there’s no other word for it—love math. High school math teachers attended to give lectures and listen to talks about how to encourage their students to get excited about the joy of discovery. Retired college professors shared ideas about how to engage students who had previously been brutalized by math and math teachers.
Nobody wants to be converted. I get that. I understand that you may hang on to your negative experiences with all things math-y. But my essay this week isn’t to sell you on math. Just to point out that people can come together with a shared positive goal.
Which you have to admit, the subject matter notwithstanding, is a good thing in these trying times.
