nightmares

I was a very bad math student in my day. Brighter than average, I managed to get into the honors math classes in high school, which meant Trigonometry and AP Calculus.

But I sucked at it. I really sucked at it.

I guess it makes sense, since I hardly ever did my homework. I really hated the stuff. Seemed so monotonous to me. And it wasn't the kind of thing that I could do quickly, in between classes in the band room, with people around me talking and yelling and carrying on. So I usually got the answers some other way.

So I guess it's fitting that, after a day of being frustrated with my students who weren't doing their homework, that I should be plagued by nightmares of the Quadratic Formula.

I'm totally serious. I dreamt all night that I was back in high school and trying not to fail calculus (or was it trig.?) by learning the quadratic formula.

For those of you who don't remember, the quadratic formula goes like this:

Would you believe that my dreaming mind came up with all of it except for the "-b" part? That's pretty interesting, right there. But even more interesting to me is the feelings that went along with this nightmare. Feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and terror. "Oh, my God. I didn't do the homework. I'm going to fail! I'm stupid. I hate myself." All of that stuff from high school came rushing back at me.

When I said before that I "sucked" at math, that wasn't entirely true. I just wasn't naturally really good at it. And that was hard for me to deal with. I was naturally good at most of my other subjects, so in math I was just . . . regular? That may sound arrogant, especially since I was still in honors math, but I felt slow compared to my peers, and that was part of the reason I didn't study. If I would have put forth all of my effort and still have been slow, then that would have meant I really was slow. But if I just blew off the math homework, then my grades were obviously just from that.

So what is my unconscious telling me through all this? Maybe just to keep in mind that some of my kids may have these same feelings of guilt, terror, and inadequacy when it comes to my classes. And how can I help them succeed in spite of those feelings.

And this also begs the question: Do math teachers have nightmares about the Hero's Journey?

I hope so. <grin>

Posted: Sun - September 28, 2003 at 09:47 AM

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C347403247"); >

nightmares

> >