Math Makes Sense - Not (Adam)

[Joelle McIntosh]

Joelle tended to dread math class.  It was one of the few classes she always felt behind in, no matter what she did outside of class.  Tomer had been helping her with tutoring sessions, but she always felt like just as she was starting to grasp one concept, the class had moved on to something new and once again she felt lost.

The current lesson was no different.  She'd followed along with the examples as faithfully as she could, but once the class had been set loose on the problems on their own... nothing made sense.  Even looking back at the examples she was getting nowhere, and fast.  By the time most of her classmate had finished the majority of the work, she'd struggled her way through just a few.  

It was hardly a surprise as their quizzes from the new unit were handed that she'd done poorly.  That was nothing new.

The note at the top asking her to see Mr. Deulane after class?

That was new.

She was antsy the rest of the class, worried about just why she was supposed to stay late.  Was she going to get kicked out of the class for doing badly?  Was there a remedial math class she could be bumped to?  Oh gosh what were her parents going to say if that happened?

As the bell rang, she took her time putting away her things in her bag, waiting for most of the other students to filter out before she dared approach Mr. Deulane.  He was a good teacher, and she felt awful for letting him down.  Okay, he could get a little shout-y when students were being bad, but overall he was mostly nice, and smart.

"Umm..."  Timidly, she raised her quiz.  "You... wanted to see me, Mr. Deulane?"

[Adam Deulane]

The most difficult part of Adam's job were students who just didn't get it. How was he supposed to teach someone who didn't understand the tools he was using to teach? An extra layer of frustration was added by his own intuitive understanding of the subject. He had always been able to simply see how it worked. The mechanisms that mathematics represented had been self-evident to Adam since he was six.

But a teacher who could only teach students who already knew how to do the subject wasn't much of a teacher. And like a poet who could understand the flow of a poor writer's thoughts by reading their essay, Adam could tell where the thought process was breaking down by examining a student's work. Well, most of the time.

Adam nodded as the last of his students filtered out. "Yes," he said in his usual formal manner. "You seem to be struggling quite a bit with trigonometry." Her grades were evidence of that. "I'd like to meet with you after school some time this week to give you some extra help."

[Joelle McIntosh]

Ohhh, so he'd noticed, then.

Well, of course he had noticed. He was the teacher. Bad grades didn't often slip under their radars.

For as long as she could remember, Joelle had struggled with math. Her grades had always been low, but she could skate by. But now she was in high school, things seemed to have... escalated. And while Tomer's tutoring was endlessly helpful for most units, some really didn't click. Like trigonometry.

Shyly, she scuffed her foot against the floor - something of a nervous habit, she was starting to realize. "I'm sorry, Mr. Deulane. You're a really good teacher. It just... doesn't stick sometimes." At least she wasn't questioning why they were trying to find the missing angle in the first place, like she'd heard some of her classmates do at the start of the unit. She knew better than to pester her teacher like that.

His offer surprised her a little. She had no idea that teachers did tutoring too. "Really?" Now she had to think about her schedule. And respect his, of course! "Umm I have dance after school on Wednesday... but other than that I can come any day you can accommodate." She knew that teachers had lives outside the classroom, and she hated to impede on Mr Deulane's. "... I'm sorry to make you take time out of your schedule."

[Adam Deulane]

Adam did not get a lot of smart alek "What's the point of finding the angle?" in his classes. One student who tried that tack at the beginning of the year was answered with, "To develop your capacity for abstract thought. If you're not interested, feel free to leave."

Joelle was not a smart alek. She was a normal student who didn't understand math well, and Adam had become accustomed to those. "I understand," he told Joelle. "Hopefully I'll be able to clear up some of the topics you've been having trouble with."

Adam's life outside the classroom was mostly sitting in his apartment and reading peer reviewed articles, so Joelle was the limiting factor for scheduling a tutoring time. "That's not a problem," he said calmly. "Let's meet in the math center after sixth period on Thursday."

[Joelle McIntosh]

If she didn't have to take math, Joelle would have opted out of it from the start. Sadly, it was something of a life skill, though she hardly saw a need to use something like trigonometry in real life. Maybe time would tell, but at least she didn't direct her distaste for it at her teacher like some of the students tried to do. She liked Mr. Deulane. He was smart, and the way he taught was thorough, even if it didn't always make sense to her.

"Thank you, Mr. Deulane. I really do appreciate the help." Especially when it was his own time he was using to assist her. She peeked down at her quiz again, a tiny scowl appearing at the mark at the top of the page. "... Maybe I should drop down to the remedial class." She didn't want to, but it was an option. Maybe.

"Okay, we can do Thursday." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly typed in the meeting so she would remember. "Do I need to bring anything?"