Algebra Too!

So, last night I was doing something I do not do much of these days, I was tutoring. The student is the son of a dear friend of mine who is struggling with Algebra 2. Now I know this young man is not alone in this position, as I would have to say at least half the people I’ve ever known struggled with Intermediate Algebra. In fact, I recall many years ago, sitting in a mathematics course that had me over a barrel. In other words I was not doing well. Barely passing would have been an accurate description. I’m not really a math guy myself, but I have proven that if you are committed, and I don’t mean committed to a nut house, but really determined and willing to work twice as hard as anyone else in the class and willing to reach out for plenty of help, you can pass almost anything, eventually.

Yet I digress, I was sitting in a course called Differential Equations asking myself how I will ever pass this class, when the professor announced, if anyone was interested in a little extra credit, see him after class. Well you know where I was after class . I was given a stack of midterm exams from two intermediate algebra classes he teaches. This was a lot of exams too; I would guess seventy or more. So I spent the whole weekend grading these algebra tests. When I brought them back to the instructor I said; I think I messed up here. “Why”, he asked, “because, half of these students failed the exam”. He said, “That’s about right”. Wow!

So this young man I’m tutoring is very smart, but typical in Algebra land, it seems. What I began to see was this kid was more likely bored than he was confused by X and Y Planes. Then I remembered when I started my own education at Santa Monica Community College. I had to start with high school arithmetic because I avoided all things mathematical back then. I seemed to have a lot trouble. But the word was out, that if you have trouble with math there is one teacher you need to take. I will not give his name out here, because he is probably still teaching there and if you attend that school you will hear very quickly about who he is.

For now, we’ll call him … Mr. Brown. His classes are filled to the brim, always. He starts his class lecture by yelling out to the room that he loves math and do you know why, he shouts. And all the students that have had him before shout back; “Because Math is beautiful!” “That’s Right”, he would exclaim. Math is beautiful! He went on to explain math is beautiful because 2 + 2 ALWAYS equals 4! ALWAYS! It never equals anything else. Well you get the idea.

Mr. Brown also believed that learning the material was much more important than getting a grade. So, he backed it up with action. Every student in his class had a choice of taking one of the exams over again, if they were not happy with their grade. This exam would not be the same exam as the one before but if the grade was better, it would replace it, just as long as you learn something. He was and probably still is a funny man that enjoys teaching, a lot. And his students felt that, including me. I have had good teachers and bad teachers and what got me through the bad teachers was getting a tutor to translate mathematics into a human language that a slug like me could understand. And it was not as boring or intimidating. In fact, “It was beautiful!” Hooray for the Mr. Browns out there!