"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe."
-- Anatole France

in each of my classrooms.  I remember lots of things that I learned.  I remember

which teachers    I liked.  I remember who I sat next to…  But, my only memory

of math in elementary school is listening to a tape of a man saying, “Three

times four is….  Four times four is…  Five times four is…  Blah blah blah.“  It

was one of those drills where you had to write down the answers before the

mystery voice asked the next one.  It was boring and I hated it.  Hey, it just

occurred to me…  Why couldn’t my teacher have just asked us these

questions himself?  Why on earth did he need a tape for this?!  Couldn’t he get

the timing right or something?  It’s not like he was doing anything during this

time.  He was just walking around the room.  Anyway, that’s all I remember

about learning math.  Pretty sad!

          But, seventh grade math…  Boy, do I remember that!  Much to my

chagrin, they stuck me in one of those “gifted” programs.  You know the ones

– where you have to do twice as much work as the other kids and get lower

grades as a reward.  This never did make sense to me.  So, I was in something

called “7X Math.”  I guess the “X” was put in there as some sort of sick

algebra joke.  It was a cruel irony to say the least.  

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