Oct 19 2009
Summing it up
I’d rather not thanks. When thinking about the depth I have gone into with my characters, each has a job - or way to spend their waking hours - that I have a little bit of knowledge about. Which is exactly why you will not find an accountant or any other kind of number cruncher among them. Give me words any day. Much more fun to play with. I know what I need to know and thankfully nobody has asked me about algebra since I left school, or Pi (3point something I think) though I might have got that wrong as well
But tonight confirmed to me that my talent probably lies in the world of words, not numbers. This came in the form of my daughter’s homework - now doing the sum is fine, but then she has to show the working out. I’ll just get my axe and chop down a few trees, we might need to find extra paper. Perhaps another dozen pencils, that is be optimistic. Well I spent an hour and got several different answers using the methods she had been taught. In the end I used a calculator and got yet another answer - but couldn’t see how this was right - technology, must be a blip
Down comes the husband, does the sum and gets the same answer as the calculator. Oh it’s like this, he says, you just flip the sum…
Talk to him about number lines, grid systems and partitioning and he is now as stumped as I am. Why is there a little part of me that is pleased about that?
I know the feelin. My children sniff and snigger whenever I offer to help them with maths but would sit at my feet for their English lessons! Love your write up and I think you are a fun writer. Makes me smile all the time.
Oh this is too funny. I have always had a knack for math myself, and when I help my high school students with their algebra, they always look at me quizzically and say “but you’re an English teacher.”
Just ’cause I can do it doesn’t mean I like it
I’ll stick to writing about characters with jobs I’d be willing to do.