Why Don't Teachers Conceptualize Math????????????????????????

                         Maybe more do, today, but, in my time, believe me, they did not.

                         Math was the bane of my existence from about third grade on.  I did not fail, but there were times when I struggled, areas where I excelled, and others where I just did not.  I will tell you my math experiences.

                           But first, let me tell you what "conceptualizing math" means to me.  It means explaining to me, student, why such a thing is done, and not just what.  During my time, if I were so much as to question why something should be done a certain way, the teacher's attitude was because he or she said so.  That was never good enough for me.

                               So, let's see.  In third grade, we had addition and subtraction of large numbers.  I always excelled at going forward--addition and multiplication--but not backwards, like subtraction or division.  The first "F" I ever got was in third grade on a math paper, with the teacher writing, in red, of course, to make me feel especially bad about myself, "You did not think about these problems."  On one of my report cards that year I got a "C-" in math, my lowest grade for my time.  The teacher commented that I "was having great difficulty borrowing in subtraction."

                                  Well, of course, because she never bothered to explain what I wanted to know.  Why do we have to borrow?  Is there another way?  And that thing about the zero changing to a ten, or changing to a nine, why and when?  To understand these things, which I eventually mastered, it would have helped if the "why" of things had been explained.  But who cared, besides me?

                                      Remember the end of Act I in David Lindsay-Abaire's "Proof?"  The sister walks in, as Catherine is working, and she tells her sister she didn't find the proof, she wrote it.  Without seeming to understand how she came to do that.  When I saw the play I thought, "That could be me."

                                         In fourth grade, it was even worse.  Long multiplication and division, with having to change zeros to tens and hundreds, etc. took a long time for me to master.  If something had bothered to explain why, except saying one just does it, that might have made a difference to me, and instilled an interest in math I was slowly losing.  And then there was all that subtraction in long division, and columnizing everything on the side.  When I was taught to do it, the way my parents did, in sixth grade, what a difference!  It was so much easier, and clearer!  I never went back to the fourth-grade way again.

                                         And in that year, I got another "C-" in math.

                                       Seventh grade was worse.  That teacher was young, insecure, and in some ways afraid of us.  She would belittle those like me failing to understand, at an age when, facing puberty, I was afraid to counter back.  I got another "C-" that year, but somehow picked myself up and was A-B the rest of the year.

                                       Eighth grade was the worst, socially, and in math.  Start with the fact that I was appalled I had not been selected to take Algebra in the eighth grade.  As it turned out, this turned out to be a good thing, because the same teacher of Algebra was who I had for eighth grade math.  And several of the bright students in that Algebra class had to take it over in ninth grade.

                                          This was the year that severed my ties to math and science.  The math teacher was as disinterested in teaching us the subject as many of us were in studying it.  The concept of positive and negative numbers I just could not grasp, and no one could make it understandable to me.  Interestingly, I started out the first marking period with a "B," but the rest of the terms all my grades were "D."  And I had never got one in my life, till then!  I was so humiliated.  The science teacher was no better, as I had no idea what was being taught, the labs were difficult, and neither he nor I were interested.  I got the only "deficiency slip" in my entire school career, thanks to this class.

                                              Because of eighth grade, I opted, in ninth, to take something called "Pre-Algebra."  It was Algebra I, in two years, went at a slower pace, and the teacher, for me, was able to clarify things in ways I could grasp.  Which meant in my junior year I would take Geometry, and in senior year I would take Algebra II, or Trigonometry.  I just could not escape math.

                                                 But what was this?  In my junior year, when I took the PSAT, I did better on the math than the verbal section.  I actually cried.  On the SAT's, my verbal scores soared, but my math scores were higher than I expected.  Somewhere existed in me a math potential, but no one was able to bring it out.

                                                    This was confirmed by my acing Geometry in junior year. I had the highest average in our class.  I remember the teacher, Mr. Jern, taking me aside, urging me to think about math or things related to it, as a career.  I told him, as happy as I was with my grades this year, I cannot tell how this came about.  This situation was so outside the realm of my previous experiences.

                                                      Alas, senior year came.  I walked into Trigonometry feeling quite cocky.  It turned out to be a repeat of eighth grade.  The teacher was disinterested, could not reach me, and again, I started out with a "B," but once we got to logarithms, I was lost.  And, though I graduated from high school with honors, in my final term of math in that town's school system, I got an "E," the letter then for "failure."  And, of course, it made me feel like one.

                                                        So, here I am facing college.  So many of them required lots of math and science in their core curriculum.  One of the reasons I chose Seton Hall was because, at that time, the only adverse core requirement was a course in mathematics, and they had one tailored for students like me.  It was called "Math For Liberal Arts Students," designed to be the last math class any of us would take, which proved true with me.  The teacher was understanding, and even though I did not do well on the probability section of the final, I scored at least a "B."

                                                          Of course, people in math professions are always more successful, financially.  It is "more lucrative," they say. But are they really happy?  I wonder.

                                                           Just as I wonder how happy I would have been, had I been good in math?

                                                           Retrospectively, I probably am better off where I am, and where I have been.

                                                            Farewell, math; you who did me dirt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!