Mr Upton and Math

I recently regained contact with one of my high school Algebra teachers, Mr. Upton. His manic intensity .. uh.. didn’t really do anything for me, because I hated math. Passionately.

However, to this day I believe his teaching methods to be excellent: he always kept one window open, unless it snowed, he maintained rigid control over the class, and he rotated student seating based on the grades of the last test, lower scores at the front of the class, higher towards the back.

In a recent email with him, he says, “By the way, I was ordered to stop the practice of seating the students in my classroom based on their academic grades because it was cruel to the students.?? This is why I am now in favor of vouchers in education so we can close down the schools and their administrators who are not accountable for the results of their students.“

????That he was “ordered to stop” is just sick and wrong. It wasn’t cruel to the students; it was moving kids who needed more attention closer to the instructor. Sound educational practice that I’ll use when I own my own private academy.

This further reflects the degeneration of public schools; however, IMHO, if a parent gives up their right to raise their own children, and instead, foist them off upon a governmental agency, then those parents also give up their right to complain if their children are force-fed mindless watered-down

gruel rather than given a proper education. I have fond memories of Principal Pace, and I hope that mealy-mouthed adminocrat is underachieving somewhere less damaging now.

I got a degree in professional geography, at UNA. I’d successfully avoided taking any math classes for almost 5 years of college, but i HAD to pass statistics. I’d taken this class about 3 times already, and dropped it. This was the last time I could take it before graduating, and luckily for me, my pal Ray, a math major, was also taking it.

“I’m a math major because I’m lazy,” Ray said. “Math is hard,” I said, quoting a Barbie doll. “No, really, think about it: in your geography

classes, you have to learn a lot of stuff. I hate learning a lot of stuff. With math, you just learn a few things, little mental tricks, then you practice them for hours on end. You don’t really learn many new things, just how to refine the things you do know.” At this point, a connection clicked, and I realized that I always knew how to do the problems; that was easy. I just hated the repetition; that was boring.

From then on, Ray and I would meet up at the library at ten PM, on the

nights before the tests. With practice tests, Ray would show me how to do the problems, then I’d go through them all on my own, occasionally asking him for help. Then I’d go through them all on my own, and he’d check them. Then I’d redo all of the questions again. And again. By 2 AM, the library would kick us out, so we’d go to Krystals. By 6 AM, we were zonked, so we’d go back to my apartment, sleep on the couch or floor for an hour, and go take the test at 7 AM.

I passed statistics with a B. This was the first B I’d gotten in a math class since elementary school.