Math for Everyday Life

Once upon a time when I was a math teacher, I tended to specialize in the basic algebra courses. I should just leave it at that... I was a "specialist" -- yeah, that's the ticket. You know, like I turned down the higher-level stuff to pursue my calling of helping the confused entry-level guys.... Sounds better than the truth: as a long-time adjunct, I often got stuck did I say stuck? I meant assigned the courses that had a lot of sections to cover and were perhaps not quite as popular with the regular faculty.

In any case, I probably taught some variation on Elementary Algebra 20 or 30 times, and while I wouldn't say I did it in my sleep (OK, some of those 7 AM classes were borderline), I did definitely develop a somewhat ritualized shtik.

For example, opposites. Low-level math students are conditioned to think of - as "minus" or perhaps "negative"... but is "-x" a negative number? I tried to get them to read this as "the opposite of x", and I told them: it depends on where you're standing. If you're on the number line to the right of zero (positive), the opposite is in fact negative; but if you're on the other side of zero, taking the opposite results in a positive number. Make sense? All right, for your homework, do the odd-numbered problems on page 117....

Well, as I so often told my students: the math you're paying for, but the philosophy you get for free -- and so it is that so much in life depends on where you're standing.

Like Robin Williams. It's amazing how many of his movies I've seen, but I can't think of too many of them that really involved me viscerally. That may be because we never quite lose the awareness that we're watching **Robin Williams**; a high percentage of his movies exist for the sole purpose of allowing him to do his running-around, arms-flapping, funny-voices, high-energy thing he does... but again, maybe it depends on where you're standing.

Recently I re-watched Mrs. Doubtfire, many years after my first viewing. First of all, I have to say it's really not a documentary. It might be in the same zip code as plausible, but it's certainly not walking distance. The mere fact that a man who's obviously hairier than several species of apes can pass for a woman is actually only the tip of the iceberg.

And, OK, it's not trying to be. It's a fairly broad comedy with an inoffensive "awwww...." kind of moral to it, and it's enjoyable enough on that level. Then, we reached the pivotal courtroom scene.

In that scene, the ex-wife (Sally Field) is petitioning for sole custody of the kids, and he delivers a speech about how losing touch with his kids would devastate him; there's no way he could live without them. And suddenly I found myself on the verge of tears, putting myself inside the scene and thinking what it would be like not to see my kids every day.

Now, I saw this 10 or 15 years ago and enjoyed it -- certainly wasn't traumatized by it -- but this time it was like all the air was being sucked out of the room. I'm surely standing in a different place now... maybe even the opposite of where I was then.