Seventh Grade Math

I like to think I was more aware of macro-social interactions than most young boys; most adults just called me opinionated.  

No matter which term was correct, I was conscious of who I was, how I thought, and how that impacted my own relationships beginning when I was in elementary school.  So, the first day of seventh grade math really shouldn’t have been  a surprise.

Seventh Grade.  New school, new people to meet and new things to learn.  The first day was all about following the class assignment sheet that had been mailed to the house just in time to ruin the last couple of weeks of summer vacation.    

As I walked into my assigned math classroom I immediately noticed that the rest of the kids in the classroom were the brainiac nerds.  At least those I knew were, and the ones I didn’t know sure looked the part.  I really didn’t fit in with that stereotype, at least I was trying hard not to.  

By seventh grade I was an accomplished backpacker, sailor, and outdoorsman.  I hunted and fished, rode bikes, go-carts, and mostly ran pretty wild all things considered.  I could toss a pretty mean lasso loop, and wore tee-shirts, wrangler boot cut jeans, and cowboy boots for heaven’s sake.

The teacher wasn’t in the room yet, and as I looked around at the rest of the kids in the class, I really was feeling that this was going to be a tough year for me.  Now, it’s not that I had anything particular against any of these other little geniuses, it was just that they weren’t the people that I wanted to be hanging out with.  But even with that I was thinking that it was only a single class, and it wasn‘t like I had to make friends or anything, just had to do the math, and take the tests, and it would be alright.

Just about then, the door opened and in walked the teacher,.  The scale had tipped, and not in my favor.

He wore tie dye, and a peace sign on beads around his neck, holey jeans, and Birkenstock sandals, no socks, and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail.   Now that I am older, I understand that it should have been all about the education, but back then, I didn’t see that and all I could do was wonder how I could get out of that class.

Thankfully, the educator is always the smartest person in the room.

Don‘t believe it?  Just ask, they‘ll be happy to tell you.  

So Mister whoever he was immediately set in to tell us that we had been “tentatively” placed in this most advanced math class based on the input of our 6th grade teachers.  But, he had to confirm we really belonged there before we would be allowed to stay.  

My ears perked up.

Then he passed out a test that we had to take and pass to stay in the class.

I smelled my ticket out.  

Looking back on it I screwed up.  

No, I don’t mean that I screwed up by ducking out of that class; but you know, if the educator was as bright as they wanted me to believe, you would think they would have asked themselves how it was that a boy who had been placed in the most advanced math class, couldn’t answer a single question right out of a hundred multiple choice questions.    Hell, statistics should have told them something was fishy.

But, it worked.

They promptly pulled me out of that class and dumped in in the “bonehead” math class.

Best year in math I ever had.

My new teacher was Don Immel, and Don and I got into great discussions.  

We talked/argued about whether alternate dimensions could exist.

And  base 5 math systems.

And how gravity impacted planet rotation and orbits.  

Day after day, all through the seventh grade I looked forward to math, knowing that it was going to be interesting, engaging, and exciting.  

The other kids in class got into it too.  They got excited, and argued their ideas too, paying more attention and working harder for all of it.  Years later, Don was to tell me that year was the most rewarding year he had ever taught.  Having me in class got the rest of the kids involved and he moved more kids onto higher level classes at the end of the year than any other year.

Unfortunately Don Immel’s mom didn’t raise no dummies.

Walking into my math class on the first day of the eighth-grade, I immediately noticed that I was back in the class with all those brainiacs…..only this year, not only would there be no getting out of it, but I was going to have to complete with them without the preparation year that they had had.  I actually had to pay attention in the eighth grade. 

 - © Marty k Vandermolen 2013 - All Rights Reserved