Why You maybe don’t Suck at Math

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

That post (two posts back) was pretty high on the rant-scale, I admit. So be it. It should be tempered with a little praise for good teachers, though, and a reader left a very inspiring comment at it. Go check it out. It’s at the “Why you Suck at Math (Pt. I)” page.

Her comment inspires me to mention the two math teachers I remember who decidedly did not suck. Mr. Engel, the fifth-grade math teacher at St. Mark’s Avenue School in Bellmore, New York, way back in the 60’s was a very good teacher. He made me wonder why all the teachers who tried to teach me math in the earlier grades were so bad at it.

Unfortunately, sixth grade came around, and we had a major dork, which made me think Mr. Engel was a fluke. (He was!)

I think it was in tenth grade, (Kennedy High, Bellmore, New York) that I had to take geometry. I’m sure they had to drag me into the class kicking, because I don’t think I ever actually passed algebra. I surely didn’t know any.

There was a very cool teacher, Mr. Golden, who had a flamboyant way of teaching (to go along with his flamboyant mustache). He used large gestures and great analogies to illustrate concepts that he was obviously passionate about.

With a fairly heavy New York accent, he drummed, “If awl trolley cahs have eighteen wheels, and I have a cah with twelve wheels, can it be a trolley cah?” into us so often, it is still my prefered analogy when trying to explain basic logic to people.

Mr. Golden also had a gold-colored Corvette Stingray. Could you get any cooler than that in 1971?

I remember how he really engaged the curiousity of just about every student. Even the mathematically disinclined, like me, enjoyed class, and managed to do the homework. Not just do it, but relish it.

At one point, when we were doing constructions, Mr. Golden said that no one had ever trisected an angle with a compass and straight-edge. I spent a three-day weekend obsessing on that problem. For a kid who never actually had finished math homework before, that was a miracle. Although you can’t prove a negative, I convinced myself that he was probably right about the trisecting-thing.

My grade for the class was in the 90’s, I recall. I believe that was the only math class I ever passed, or deserved to pass.

Once again, educational entropy ruled, and the next years of high-school math teachers deteriorated into clones of “Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S.” (without the charm).

But I will always remember Mr. Engel and Mr. Golden, who who proved to me that it wasn’t the subject, but the teachers, who can make or break math education for most students. Many good teachers or other mentors in your life may be why you don’t suck at math.

Thanks, guys.

P.S. - In the comment below, an asture reader mentioned that there is a proof for the impossibility of constructing the trisection of an angle.
You can find out more about it here.

I mentioned that it is impossible to prove a negative. Take that with a grain of salt. The proof for impossibity is not the proof for a negative, either. There is a difference. I should be more careful with my wording in the future.

Also, please keep in mind that you can trisect an angle. You just can’t do it as a classical construction, using a compass and straight-edge. You’re not allowed to modify the compass or straight-edge, either, by marking them or any other way.

Finally, there are certain angles which can be trisected by construction - for instance a right angle. So, a more succinct statement would be “It has been proven that you can’t construct the trisection of a general angle by classical means.” There’s probably a better way to express it than that, but I’ll leave that up to you to find it.

Tags: