The Day I Quit Math
When I was in middle school, my sixth grade teachers used an incentive system, and would give students fake money whenever we did something good or commendable,
and took money away if you broke the rules.
At the end of the marking period, there was a huge auction in the school cafeteria where students could spend their money to buy the latest and greatest products the world had to offer 12 year-old kids in the mid-nineties:
Tamagotchi pets, blowup couches, Beanie Babies, and the crown jewel of auction items:
a waterproof Walkman. You know what I’m talking about, 5 pounds of yellow-and-black magic.
As a twelve year-old desperate for attention and some type of notoriety in a big new place that could be scary and cruel,
I did everything I could to earn those class dollars so that I could proudly wear that Walkman in public.
In this year of my life that was marked by my parent’s divorce, having a voice that fluctuated its pitch every other sentence, and just being in middle school.
Winning that Walkman became an obsession. And by the end of the marking period I had amassed 498 dollars.
That Walkman was mine.
But then one day, I was sitting in my honors math class taking notes as the teacher, who was a tall ex-military man with a crew cut as flat as a butcher block, lectured on and on about long division or multiplying fractions.
And In the middle of his lecture, I turned to the student sitting next to me and asked him a very specific question about the math content.
Okay, not really. I actually asked him who he thought was hotter: Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.
And the math teacher stopped what he was saying, turned and looked at me, and said in a deep and commanding voice,
“Trevor, I said there is to be absolutely no talking. You need to learn how to follow the rules. I am deducting five hundred Class Dollars from you.”
I felt every eye in the room staring at me, and tears welled in my eyes when I realized every single dollar I’d earned that semester was gone.
And even though I now know they did not, I believed every kid in that class knew I was broke.
And broken.
At the auction in the school cafeteria, they moved a table to the back of the room for kids who had no money to spend to sit at.
And being two dollars in debt, me and three other kids from the entire sixth grade sat and watched the auction from afar.
I was embarrassed and shamed.
This story had a profound effect on the rest of my time in school.
I mean, my world kept spinning,
But gone were the days that I tried to curry favor with my teachers. Especially-- this math teacher. I did everything in my power to get under his skin and make him pay for the way that he affected me. The experience taught me that hard work does not always pay off, and so why put in the effort? After a year of many detentions and calls home,
I failed sixth grade math.
In seventh grade, I was moved down to a “regular” math class, as my previous year’s performance proved I could no longer handle honors. Because I spent the last semester goofing off and loathing my teacher, I was unprepared for this class, and struggled again. This pattern continued through eighth grade, and all of high school, and into college, where I failed my first two college algebra courses.
My struggles with math were always attributed to “not being good at it,” or “having too much of a right brain.” However, until middle school, I enjoyed numbers.
My war with math began in sixth grade when I asked my neighbor who his favorite pop star was.
The point of this story is not to paint this teacher as a monster who set out one morning to destroy my career in mathematics. Teachers have bad days, and make mistakes all the time.
I might be the king of teachers who makes mistakes.
The truth is, my old math teacher probably had no idea what impact his simple punishment had on me. He saw a student talk out of turn, and wasn’t in the mood to hear explanations. He didn’t know that he helped tip the first domino on my downward spiral in math.
Students are highly impressionable beings, and teachers are profoundly influential people. I had a English teacher that same year of middle school, Mr. Peters. Mr Peters asked me everyday how I was doing, and often sat with me after class to talk about my parent’s divorce, or the Minnesota Vikings, or scary girls.
He listened to me.
That’s all I can really remember about Mr. Peters’ class. But I know I loved every moment in his room, and in a very similar way he knocked down the first domino of part of my life’s trajectory.
And now I am a English teacher.