Mathematically eliminated

I knew it was inevitable. Really I did. But I had no idea it would come to soon. Turns out that on Thursday August 28, 2008 I was mathematically eliminated. No, not from any kind of playoff race, but truly, mathematically eliminated. From being of any use to my 6th grade Kenzo in doing her math homework. You see, in the past few days, she has brought home "ALGEBRA."

When I saw her doing 2x + 3 = 19 I knew my time of usefulness for her was near.

Math was never a strong suit for me. Algebra seemed silly and useless. This is math for crying out loud, why are we even messing with letters. After that silly mish-mash of letters and numbers, we moved on to geometry. Geometry class is where we would spend hours trying to find the mass inside some sort of rhombus or trapezoid or equilateral this or that. Meaningless tomfoolery if you ask me. Then came the mother of all crazy math, trigonometry, what with all the  "proving" of theorems and such. Uh, one one quick question Miss Trigonometry Teacher if you please..."haven't these things been proven before. That's what I thought...so why all the bother with the 'proving' exercise. Seems like a terrible waste of taxpayers money."

So therein lays the basis for my lack of expertise and ability in mathematics.

The fact that my services would longer be required became blindingly apparent when Kenzo came home today with homework that went something like this.

"Benny is a baker. Benny makes zucchini bread. It takes him six eggs to make one loaf of bread. (seems a bit high cholesterol to me...thought we were trying to work on this childhood health and obesity thing...) If Benny wants to make six/nine/twelve loaves of bread, how many eggs will he need? What does the rule look like?"

Ahhhhhhhhh.........! Why does Benny need to make so much bread? Does Benny have a business license? Is Benny by chance using any illegal immigrants to help him bake so much bread? Those are the questions we need to be asking...not "what is the rule?" There is no rule. Just add some eggs and bake the bread Benny. Don't get bogged down by rules. You're a baker Benny...just bake your forsaken egg-slathered bread!

But alas, Kenzo did not think that my approach was what her teacher was looking for and so it appears that I am mathematically eliminated from helping sweet K. with any math homework for the rest of her life.

All because of Benny and the bread.

Comments

[Dori]

Oh, my...Algebra is the ONE thing I'm not struggling with when it comes to helping with homework. Of course, when you take 3 years of Algebra in High School and then 1 more in college you should at least know how to do 2x+3=19.

Isn't Middle School a blast???

Blessings,
Dori

P.S. By the way...x=8! :)

[jeff atwood]

dori - middle school...hmm...i am just not ready to have my girls at a school where the word "dance" is used as a social event, not just involved in a phrase that involves the word "square" and is part of the PE curriculum...