I know it embarrasses my husband when I pull out my tip calculator, but I suck at math!
In high school I excelled in English, history, art, music, PE and foreign language classes, but I was terrible at math and science.
In all honesty, if it weren’t for the homework and all the extra credit problems and reports I completed, I don’t think I would have even earned a diploma. I am not proud of this, I am just stating facts. I am proud to be very right brained.
Sitting in my seventh grade Algebra class, I would get dizzy staring at all the numbers on the chalkboard and when it came to formulas and word problems… forget it!
Tutors didn’t help. The summer courses I took didn’t help and neither did the knock down drag out fights I would have with my parents. They couldn’t understand why I was getting A’s and B’s in the courses I actually enjoyed and practically failing the ones I didn’t. It seemed pretty logical to me, but they were educators and thought my grades should be more “consistent”. I consistently argued that I’d never need math in my life.
By the time I got to college, I took the minimum required math courses that I needed in order to graduate and that was that. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t go for a marketing degree because I couldn’t handle all the math prerequisites and instead opted for a Bachelor of Arts in communications with an emphasis in public relations. I can still put together a marketing budget and successfully stick to it.
I like to think that I have a logical mind that is very black and white because I appreciate that in mathematics, there can only be one solution to a problem. I mean 2 + 2 can’t equal 5, right? But numbers have always boggled my mind. I just don’t have a head for them and I never have. I know just enough to get by and for everything else, there’s a calculator.
I understand the value of math and why it is important to learn basic formulas, fractions and percentages, but I’m already starting to worry about helping Lucas with his math homework. Beyond middle school, we are definitely going to have problems (no pun intended). Thank goodness his dad is a very proud left brainer and will assist in this arena.
Numbers or not, the best is yet to be.
