I have a poster hanging in my classroom. It is a picture of good ol’ Al himself and underneath it reads, “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
The stupidity that often spills forth from my students is something that I no longer focus on, I am used to it. FYI, I don’t see stupidity as not knowing something, there is much in the world that I know nothing about and as much as I would like to try I just can’t learn about everything or know about everything. My definition of stupidity: having the opportunity to gain knowledge and not taking advantage of the gift, walking away from a learning experience, being lazy rather than learning.
Well stupidity has fallen all over my family. My cousin “C” has a daughter “Aubs” in the 8th grade. They live about 6 hours away from us. They often come to visit as my Aunt “Harry” lives here. When they visit it seems inevitable that I help Aubs with her math homework, now for the most part I really don’t mind but on the last visit, I lost it.
Thursday Night, after working a 14-hour day (Parent/Teacher Conferences) I stopped by Harry’s to visit. We were discussing Aubs recent school performance when she stated that she really struggles with fractions (BTW-No Stupidity yet in this story but it is coming). I showed her a really cool way to add/subtract fractions; I call it the “smiley face method” (it works every time, if you want to learn contact me I’ll teach you too). As I was showing her how to do the “Smiley Face” Aunty Harry watched and said that it was pretty cool. I then had Aubs add a few fractions for me with the good ole “Smiley Face” and she did great. She then asked me for an easy way to reduce fractions (still no stupidity) so we talked about factor trees and how to use them to reduce fractions. She got that to! Yahoo, we are on a roll! We then visited about her needed to do well this year in math as next year she starts High School and will start gaining credits (we called them tokens). No one had explained to her (the stupidity begins) how the “token” system works in words she could understand, she is just always told “Well in High School you won’t be able to slack off like this.” Well then we laughed and joked and had a good conversation just Aubs and me.
I then went home for a good nights sleep after telling my husband how much fun we had and how much she laughed and really seemed to understand what I had told her. Then comes Saturday… I am cleaning my house (I did well that day, pulled out the stove & cleaned behind it, cleaned the oven) when my cell phone rings. It was my cousin “Marco” she had a question. Aubs was at her house doing her homework and needed to know how to add fractions. I tried to be polite and explain to Marco how to add mixed numbers over the phone. I then hung up and that is when all heck broke loose, I even threw my CL0R0X clean up wipe across the room (if you have used these you know they are light and don’t fly well).
Here is the stupidity…
I have shown Aubs how to add fractions several times, I understand she is young and doesn’t quite “get” fractions, but never, ever has anyone (except Harry, once) sat down with Aubs and I and tried to learn how to do these things for themselves. Each of my cousins C (Aubs +2) & Marco (2 of her own) have children who are yet to complete school, they will have to do fractions. Although it is obvious that they will need to know fractions, they themselves would rather pick up the phone and call me so I can fix it (teaching math over the phone can be near impossible BTY) rather than take 10 minutes to have a refresher course on fractions so at anytime they can help their child.
Another thing that BUGGGS me about this whole thing is what do their actions say to their children. “Oh Mommy doesn’t know fractions, she won’t take 5 minutes to read my book or learn it herself so maybe it really isn’t important that I know these things.” What better experience than to learn something with your child and show them that knowledge is important, that it does matter that you learn these things. Learning is important; you can’t say that you were ever harmed by taking knowledge and making it a part of you. I may not have any interest in cars but when give the opportunity to learn how to change the oil or learn where the distributor is I figured what the heck, it can’t hurt me to know. Have I changed my oil since learning how? Nope not once, don’t really care to either but I know how. My mother taught me how to make meatloaf, have I ever made a meatloaf? Not on your life I hate meatloaf and thank the Lord so does my husband but if you come to my house and want a meatloaf I know how to fix one right up for you!
Beware if you are in my family and reading this, Christmas Eve before we open gifts I swear we are going to have a fractions lesson and EVERYONE will know how to add fractions. Now that I say that, I am thinking it might be kind of fun, maybe that is what we should give each other knowledge. Everyone could teach the others something that they might not know how to do. What a gift! No returns or exchanges! No waiting until they leave to get rid of it! No hiding it in a closet and pulling it out when they come over! On top of that how special would everyone feel when he or she left, they showed someone how to do something that they were good at. Oh Boy I can’t wait till Christmas!!!
Okay so at the end of my last post I realized too many of my post fit into that Deep Thoughts category so here is a fun one, something all must try.
