REDUCED TO LOWEST TERMS

Lots of things make me anxious: waiting in a long line that isn’t moving, watching the Bachelorette, trying to remember my password to any account. But my first anxious memory was in second-grade math class. Mrs. Grass forced us to take timed tests on addition and subtraction facts each week. The timed tests had 100 problems and we had two minutes to get as far as we could with the most correct answers. Each week, with sweaty palms and a racing heart, I made a vain attempt to improve on this test.

To prepare for our Friday timed test we played Around the World in class. It was a game designed to humiliate children who did not know their math facts. Mrs. Grass had her flashcards and one student stood behind another and the first person to yell out the right answer would advance to the next kids’ desk…trying to get “around the world.” There were the usual math ringers, who when they finally had the chance, would always run the table and went around the world every week.

And then there was me. When it was my turn to “compete,” I thought this time it will be different! I won’t freeze — even as my face flushed and sweat sprung from every pore on my body. But, alas, I was Charlie Brown and math was Lucy with the football. The numbers on the flashcards looked blurry, switched places and changed from addition to subtraction (yes, she mixed them together…pure evil). I never had a chance. I didn’t even travel around the block. So began my dysfunctional relationship with math.

I will never forget my horror in eighth grade when the idea of algebra was introduced. Wait, why was there a letter mixed in with a number? Letters were my safe space in school, how dare they be commingled with numbers. How am I supposed to know what number the letter should be? It shouldn’t be a number. It is a letter. It is “x.”

I guess I can understand why some people love the certainty and logical process of solving an equation. It is orderly, there are rules, you apply the rules and boom! You get the answer.

There might be slightly different ways to get to it, but the idea that you solve something with absoluteness; I can see the appeal.

The problem arose when my logic and the correct math logic were not in sync. Multiply that by the fact that I could not remember the rules or formulas, (I know there is such a thing as the order of operations, but I could never commit that to memory. In fact, just putting something in parenthesis makes me uncomfortable.) and you have the recipe for torn papers from all the erasing that was necessary just to get through one night’s assignments.

I must admit, in high school, I could FOIL like nobody’s business. You remember FOILing? It stood for First, Out, In, Last…or something like that. But just after I got some confidence, we moved on to some pretty elaborate story problems.

Here is a story problem from a real high school math textbook:

At noon a private plane left Austin for Los Angeles, 2100 km away, flying at 500 km/h. One hour later a jet left Los Angeles for Austin at 700 km/h. At what time did they pass each other?

Let’s break this down. When I read the first line, my poor comprehension skills kick in. “A private plane left Austin” and I immediately think of a Home Alone situation. How did Austin miss the plane? Can he rebook on a different private plane? Then I continue reading the entire problem and I discover the author could have tacked on a TX after that. I am in it for a good protagonist and I thought Austin was my guy.

I would hardly call this a ‘story” problem. There are no characters. Who owns this private plane? What business do they have in Los Angeles? Is the jet also private or can anyone be on it? Is this a trick question — are they changing time zones? Why is it critical to know when they pass each other? The “author” of this “story” problem has left me uninvested.

Let’s rewrite this problem for the “non-mathers” out there:

At noon, billionaire CIA agent, Carl Townsend boards his private plane in Austin, TX heading to Los Angeles for a secret meeting with international hackers. Johann, Carl’s pilot for over twenty years, says, “Sir, LAX is 2100 km away and we will be flying at 500 km/h.” Carl’s true plan is to parachute out of his private plane at the exact same time that an informant will jump out of a jet coming from LAX to Austin, TX — one hour later and traveling at 700 km/h. They will exchange a damning file of names of all the hacker’s mid-air…and then never see each other again. “Johann,” Carl asks, “what time should I jump out of the plane to meet my informant in the sky?”

Now we have some stakes…and maybe a scene from a Bond movie…but Carl does need to know the time they will cross paths. I can feel the urgency in his request, and I hope Johann is good at math. If I were Johann, I would reply that he should have really done that math before we were leaving — I’m a pilot, not a mathematician.

I am invested in Carl’s story now. I want to know when he should jump. I have no idea how to figure it out. I would answer that Carl should reconsider his plan — it seems flimsy at best and what if he is being double-crossed? He might end up tangled in a tree alone in Albuquerque. Maybe he should call and just have the informant tell him the names over the phone?

To solve Carl’s problem, I would just ask my sister. My older sister, Elizabeth, was a math major in college and has been a high school math teacher for over 25 years. Asking someone who understands math is the best way to solve any math problem. I have mastered shaking my head as she explains — like I understand or care.

Since Elizabeth gave me this example story problem from her Teacher’s Edition textbook, I know the time Carl jumped. It is in red at the bottom of the problem. Remember when the math books had the answers to all the odd problems in the back of the book, but the teacher would only assign the even numbers? Even the odd numbered problems — with the correct answer given — were not easy because you had to show your work. The teacher knew from all my tests scores that I couldn’t calculate the answer in my head.

And that is the square root of my hatred of math: You can’t fake your way through it. In a literature class, sometimes you can read the Cliffs Notes or watch the movie and fake your way to a “B” on an essay. Math has one answer. One. My favorite question in math class was when someone would inevitably ask the teacher if the answer had to be “reduced to lowest terms.” Even I knew the answer to that was yes. If it wasn’t in the lowest terms, that meant that there was more “mathing” to do. Reduce it until there was no math left to do, that was the answer. It would be akin to me asking my English teacher if my essay needed to have a conclusion…yes, there was more writing to do — wrap it up!

Unfortunately, I have passed my math skills to my daughter. When she would be in tears and yell, ‘Why do I even need to know this?!” I would say, “You don’t…call Aunt Lizzy!” As I tried to calm her down, I told her that getting by in math class is like getting by in life. You don’t always see why you have to go through something. Adult life is often mysterious, uncomfortable and pointless — just like math. You don’t need to know it; you need to figure out how to get by. The only way I know how to get by in life is to lean on other people. Ask for help. Accept the help. Try to learn. Pass. And then go on and study things that you love. I am thankful someone understands and loves math. It is not me. And that is OK.