My Adventures in Mathmagic Land

I have a confession to make. My math teacher friends may cringe, so I advise them to cover their ears...or at least scroll to the next section where the narrative I want to tell actually begins. Disney fans may also want to avoid the next sentence, too, unless you really want to think less of me.

Here goes: I have never watched Donald in Mathmagic Land. Ever. Despite its consideration as a "classic" portion of multiple generations' educational experience, or as the lone offering in the district media library for math classes (for many years; it's better now), I have still never seen it. And I don't really have a desire to do so.

There. I said it. Let the stoning commence. Oh, wait. That was "The Lottery," not Donald Duck. Thank you, Ms. Jackson.

Now I must clarify: I am not a math hater. I freely acknowledge its paramount importance in our world. I use it daily. I love the critical thinking skills it teaches. I understand the importance of statistics and figures and everything math encompasses. I just didn't like it. I think that may have been because I was never taught the "why" behind everything we did.Probably would have made a difference for me. Now, I wasn't bad at math; I did quite well, better than most in my grade, if I might say so. But I had quite a few adventures in Mathmagic Land without Donald or Walt or any other guide. And honestly, there were some years where I did better off just reading the darn textbook than listening to my teachers. I'll spare the guilty parties by omitting which years those were. I think, though, that I will share a short series of narratives involving me and math. (Shudder.)

Here is Episode I: The Fourth Grade Breakdown

We moved from Las Vegas to Japan in December of my fourth grade year. It was a crazy move, and we didn’t get any of our household goods from the shipping company until Christmas Eve, but that’s a different story. 

Yokota West Elementary

                I considered myself to be a pretty bright student: pretty much perfect grades, top reading group—you know. Just the year before, I was placed in the Gifted and Talented Program at J.E. Manch Elementary. However, on my first day at Yokota West Elementary, about halfway through the day we started doing multiplication, a skill I felt fairly capable of handling. I was the first one in my Ms. Pierce’s third grade class to have my multiplication table memorized after all.

                However, after a couple of simple problems multiplying two-digit numbers by single digits, Mrs. Wood assigned three rows of “review” problems where three-digit numbers were multiplied by three-digit numbers. I had never attempted problems like these before. As a young nine-year-old, I didn’t even know that was possible. My confidence eroded. The grip on my pencil faltered. I was lost, a sensation I had never experienced in school before. So what did I do? Put my head down and cried. Of course.

                No one noticed at first, but then the kid next to me poked me. “Are you okay?” he asked. I pretended not to hear. Soon the teacher was by my side asking the same question. I feigned sleeping; it seemed safer than speaking at the moment.

                Wisely I see now, Mrs. Wood dismissed the class for an unscheduled recess. When the class had disappeared and the lights were out, I thought it safe to raise my head. I should have known the teacher was still lurking. She called my name softly. “What’s really the matter?” Even my inexperienced fourth grade soul knew that she was genuinely concerned. So I spilled.

                I broke down sobbing again; this time it was a really ugly cry—snotwads and all. I felt so dumb and out of place. I just couldn’t do what everyone else already knew.

                After a few moments of blubbering and rambling, I sniffingly composed myself. And then Mrs. Wood gave me my own private multiplication lesson. She showed me that I was not too far behind the rest, and she proceeded to demonstrate the step I needed to master in order to catch up to the rest of the class. By the time recess ended and the others were back inside, I could do the assigned problems by myself.

                Not to brag or anything, but by the end of the week, I won every single multiplication race against anyone in the class. Not too bad for someone who came late to the game, huh? I learned a few lessons that day, the least important was math.

Childhood Comparisons

Every so often, I have my 9th graders construct metaphors that compare themselves to something else. Then they take that metaphor and have others complete it and include a rationale or reason why the metaphor works. See my post about villains from a few years ago, where I explain the the process in more detail. Despite the protests when I first introduce the short project, they end up enjoying the creativity, as well as the insights they gain about themselves from others' responses.

This year I had my two honors classes come up with ideas for me to write about. Some of the runners-up included superheroes, foreign countries, and bread. They ended up choosing picture book protagonists. (It beat out bread by one vote.)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Skippyjon Jones (from the Skippyjon Jones series by Judy Schachner) because he is very descriptivito and imaginativito with his words and storitos. (Ember Lee)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Harold (from Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson) because he sometimes gets lost in his own reality. (Jen Fong)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Max (from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak) because​ he knows imagination can take you to some amazing places.​ (Rillene Nielsen)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Ferdinand (from The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf) because he is so chill and he knows who he is and what he wants to be. (Alesha LeMmon and Abby Packard)

-          If I were a picture book protagonist, I would be the Very Hungry Caterpillar (from The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle) because I am always grazing, and if something gets me out of sorts, I hunker down and wait until a new opportunity presents itself.

Many other ideas were submitted, and it was difficult to narrow them down to the ones I shared; the others remain preserved in a spreadsheet...somewhere. Thanks to all who participated. I still learned something from your answers (about myself and about y'all). For those who didn't help, who would you compare me to? Who would you compare yourself to?