B'ings: Math in Schools

            Hey, guys, welcome to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin! I’m your guide through this monologue for the next few minutes, and I just happen to be Tim Cubbin. Huh? Imagine that.

            Okay, if you’ve read one of my B’ings before, y’all know the deal. For those who have no idea what a B’ing is… well, I’ll let you see if you can figure it out as you read this, and if you still don’t know what a B’ing is before the end of this editorial… well, I have failed as a blogger.

            Anyway, you’ve seen the title “Math in Schools.” Now, you can imagine this going in two ways. Way one: Math is awesome! Way two: Math is torture! Let’s be clear about this: I am not going to force you to agree with me in this editorial. You have your opinion, this is just me exercising mine in this post. So at the end, this can also go two ways. Way one: Gee, Tim Cubbin has a point, I totally agree with him! Way two: Tim Cubbin is a hack, he’s totally wrong about this! I leave you to feel however you want to feel. If you agree with me by the end of reading this editorial (and I totally hope you’ll read this whole blathering), then that’s awesome! If, however, you disagree with me, that’s fine, I respect your stance! No one can agree on everything. That’s just how things are.

            Anyway, let’s start: What is/was your favorite subject in school? My answer is English, I have a degree in journalism. I’ve been unable to actually professionally use it, which is actually why I do this blog, to get my words out there. It’s been like performers during COVID-19 (I don’t know how long this blog will stay active for, but if it is for, like, a hundred years, you might have no idea what I’m talking about, which I’m actually hoping for because it means this pandemic of my time is over and long forgotten, and THAT would be a perfect world). I have a friend who is a concert singer. Since the start of COVID-19 with the quarantine, she’s been unable to perform in concerts professionally, so sometimes she actually does half hour performances on the internet for no pay because she loves and is dedicated to her fans and wants to entertain them through this crisis. That’s what I do with this blog. But I digress, this probably is not what you wanted to read. Now, I know some of you are sitting here agreeing with me, but a majority probably does not share my preference. I know some of you say science. That’s awesome, I loved science myself, particularly biology and forensics (yes, my high school had a forensics class, which was AWESOME!)! Some of you may think social studies, like history, geography, economics, and politics. Not my thing, but if this was your favorite subject, that’s awesome, I had some really great social studies teachers that made it fun. Some of you may say health. My immature classmates totally ruined that class for me, but I’m sure many of you had great teachers and classmates who did not laugh when certain words and body parts were spoken. I know some of you may be saying physical education. I totally wish I had athletic talents, but sadly, I don’t, but I did ace my college basketball class, so I’m not totally useless. Wait, wait! Dodgeball! I was great at dodgeball in elementary school… but that was over twenty years ago (I know, I’m old), and I’m now disabled, so I am no longer in my prime. But I had the most awesome gym teacher in high school which actually did make gym fun, despite being… unskilled, so my lack of athleticism didn’t detract from enjoying it three times a week. Now, let’s go to the reason you’re here. There are folks reading this who say the absolute best class they teach at schools is mathematics. Now, some of you may read the last sentence and question the sanity of the people who agree with this last sentence. I say, if you think math is the best class that you can take in school is math, you are THE BEST! That said, math was actually my worst subject in school, which is why I think those who love math are awesome because math classes are totally hard and if you’re good at it, you have skills! I totally struggled with math in college, which actually brought my G.P.A. down quite a bit, so if you ace math in college, you are TOTALLY AWESOME! (Note I usually say THE BEST and not TOTALLY AWESOME, but I think THE BEST is redundant, so I changed it up a bit!)

Now, let’s get to my main point: the necessity of math in schools. Some of you who do not have the math gift wonder why they have to take it in school? To you, I say “There is a need to take math in school.” HOWEVER! Certain types of math seem superfluous to instill into students. Elementary school students totally need the knowledge of basic math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, order of operations, beginner algebra are all things EVERYONE NEEDS to get through life. (Well, that was elementary school math when I was in elementary school twenty-eight years ago, I know they’ve changed it up quite a bit since my time. My associate’s degree is in elementary education and the “math for elementary teachers” classes blew my mind that a great portion of the topics I didn’t even learn in college-level algebra, so if those topics are now instilled to elementary school students, I am SO, SO sorry my youth was easier to them!) I know many elementary school students struggle with the concept of algebra, as I did, and wonder “Why do I need to learn this? I’ll never use it in my life?” If they say that, I will respond “YOU DEFINITELY NEED TO LEARN THIS!” I use algebra EVERY DAY for some reason or another. There are ALWAYS going to be variables that occur to you on a very regular basis, and algebra is something you NEED! If you’re a school student and are reading this, this is something you must know to get through life. I know it’s hard, I didn’t master algebra until way into high school, and it takes a while to fully get a grasp on it, but it’s doable. BUT! And this is a VERY BIG BUT! I do feel that certain math subjects aren’t a necessity in life. Calculus and trigonometry were my archenemies in school. Every day doing my homework in high school, I thought “Why do I need to know this?” My answer is: You don’t! These are not parts of typical day to day operations for EVERY person on the planet. Maybe it will come up in your life on occasion and knowing it will be very helpful, but I think it is only needed for specific professions. So, in my opinion, these should NOT be required learning in school. My high school mandate three years of math courses. All I honestly needed to know to get to this point in my life ended after my second year of math in high school. The third year of math covered topics I have NEVER used since then and also hurt my G.P.A. It was superfluous and difficult and annoying and torturous and frustrating. My profession as a journalist has never needed to use those math skills. So again: Why did I need to learn this? Honestly, I didn’t. This advanced level of mathematics does not come up in everyday life for EVERY single student on the planet. BUT! There are professions that do require these skills. For me, it was one of those classes like “I’m only learning this just to get through this class.” I felt that way about college French, too. I learned enough French to get through the class, and thirteen years later, I remember very little of it, I just learned enough to pass the class and forgot most of it. Not ALL! But MOST! That’s another required class students sometimes wonder “Why do I need to know this?” Again, there are professions that REQUIRE it, but it just doesn’t seem to be a necessity. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. This is about math. For those learning math in high school who are struggling with calculus and trig, work hard at it, do your best, then you can forget you ever learned it sixteen years later. Oh, but from my third year of high school math: statistics. THAT is something helpful. Learn THAT! You WILL NEED it at points in your life. Other than that, you probably don’t need to know.

There’s another thing I’d like to address before you are returned to your freedom: homework. A lot of kids struggle with their homework. Their parents/guardians are usually the first people kids turn to for help with their homework. They help with spelling and grammar and reading and things pertaining to English (if you live in an English speaking country, which, if you’re reading this, you probably do because I’m writing this in English), social studies, science, and health, no major problems, these concepts are something parents/guardians can do with their kids. But math? Like I said, I had difficulty with math in school. And the concepts they teach in schools change all the time. So when I had difficulty with math, I was in trouble. I lived with my mom. Sure she’s a bookkeeper, so she has experience. But the concepts I had to study were like another language she didn’t speak, so I was on my own. When I was in ninth grade, I had a teacher who every morning would take the homework questions, put them on the white board, and pick students to do the problems in front of the whole class. We had to do “show the work.” You couldn’t just put the answer on the board, you had to show the process you went through to get your answer. So if you didn’t do your homework or got the answer wrong, the whole class knew. Oddly enough, she never collected homework, so the students most likely not to do the homework were picked to solve the hardest questions so you HAD to do the homework as she would likely call on you if she thought you wouldn’t. So, yes, I would do the homework and pray she wouldn’t call on me to answer the questions. It was embarrassing, humiliating, demeaning, (you come up with more words if you want, but I thought those three words were good ones). (Okay, I get it, I said I only had one more thing to talk about, I guess that was two, I wasn’t sure where I was going when I started this paragraph, so if I bored you, I apologize). Back to my main point: if I had difficulty with my math homework, I was on my own. I mean, I was on my own anyway because I lived with a single parent who worked late and didn’t have the time to help me with my homework, and I know there are plenty of you who have/had this same problem and totally get what I’m saying, so if you were in this situation, I’m sure plenty of you can relate to this paragraph and may even agree with this entire paragraph, but for those who can’t relate, this is just my childhood struggle and I hope you get where I’m coming from. I mean, some of you reading this editorial are math wizzes and have no connection with me here and I may even just be typing to myself at the moment, but I’m still sharing my perspective.

So, yeah, I’m going to let you go now. Just a few more things I have to say to you first before you can go about your life. I’m a pretty prolific blogger, I’ve done over sixty posts at the time of my typing this, and these B’ing editorials are not the only things I do. I do essays about topics such as mental illness since I’m bipolar. I write short stories. I haven’t done one recently, so I’m going to jump on that soon. I also have been known to write free-verse poetry (poetry with no rules, so I don’t have to rhyme or have to keep all my lines similar lengths or have a definitive structure or anything, which some of you might think is a cop out, but maybe you can compare this to epic poems, I’m just not epic). I am a huge Marvel comics fan and I write tons of reviews of graphic novel trade paperbacks, Marvel prose novels, and Marvel comic events, so if you like Marvel you should totally look into reading those. And that’s just some of the things I do, I have plenty of content to post, so if you liked this, totally come back. If you found this post on Twitter, totally follow me, retweet this post, comment, whatever you can do on Twitter (I only use Twitter for self-promotion so I’m totally not up to date on the features). Feel free to comment on this blog page if you can. If you’re on Facebook, I’d love it if you’d share this link (since if you’re reading this on Facebook you personally know me or friended me on a group page, but if this interests you and you think your friends would like this post, totally spread the word). Do whatever, but I’d appreciate it if you get me out there. So, yeah, that’s it for now, so I finish with the three words (and you’ll know them if you’ve ever read something I’ve written before): Tim Cubbin… out!