Bonehead Math
Gather around, little children. It’s story time with old 41 year old Auntie Amy. Let me start by saying that I’ve never been a math person. It’s never been a priority, never a strength, never a “thing” for me. And guess what. I managed to graduate from college. AND go on to teach 10th grade English, Speech & Debate and Creative Writing. Shocker of all shockers, I seem to be able to manage OK today and it has not affected my “adulting” in any kind of negative way. Listen, people: my husband failed accounting in his second year of University and went on to be a CPA and is currently the Chief Commercial Officer of a Fortune 500 Company. So kids, stay in school. And don’t worry about the crap you’re not so great in, just keep working hard doing what you need to do to stay the course and jump through the hoops you need to jump through to get to your goal. It’s really not going to affect your life if you’re not the world’s best math student, or whatever-student. Truly. Just be present and focus on the things that really matter: finding a fulfilling career that ignites your passions, connecting with people and practicing unconditionally loving relationships. School routine and minutiae is sometimes just the life-junk you need to get through, but it doesn’t define you, mmm kay? You’re so much more than test scores or grades, and if you’re not? (whisper-voice): You might be kind of boring. Drop mic.
Anyway, back to the non-fiction story. Mountain View High School. The year was 1990, and I was a freshman on the first day of school. According to my schedule, (printed out of course on a dot-matrix printer) I was placed in “Math A” class, affectionately known in our circle of friends as “Bonehead Math.” This wasn’t a surprise to me, but what was a surprise was the casual manner in which the class was run by a sweet, laid back middle aged teacher named Mrs. Good. The amazing thing about Mrs. Good was she wore T-shirts tucked into business dress slacks, with wool socks and clogs. Her look also included wire-framed glasses and a brown afro, not even joking or exaggerating. You do you, Mrs. Good, work it girl. Own that look, sister.
Anyway, Mrs. Good broke us into 4 groups, randomly selected, and instructed us to introduce ourselves and share something unusual from our lives that was particularly out of the ordinary. I looked at the other participants in my cohort, as we slumped into our desks coated with fake wood-paneling. Never have you seen a quadrant of less enthusiastic, lackadaisical, apathetic looking math students ever in your life. It was like I was in a real-time clip from the movie “Dangerous Minds”. I ran my fingers over a carving of the band name “Scorpions” that some past student had made in the desk and I heaved a sigh, wondering if the carver had passed “Math A” and gone on to bigger and brighter things. Perhaps the carver was in LA, wining and dining with musicians and models in “the business” as it’s called. More likely he or she was probably living in the garage of their parents’ multi-million dollar 1950’s Silicon Valley home, playing Nintendo 64 and eating day old Domino’s Pizza crusts out of a grease-laden box. Oh dear God. I closed my eyes and privately held a moment of silence for my future.
One of the kids in my quadrant was named "Roquilla": which she was quick to point out was "All Liquor" spelled backwards. (Except for if that were the case, there would be an extra “L” in her name, but I decided not to point that out.) She told us that was the name of the beverage her mother was drinking the night she was conceived. I remember trying to have zero expression on my face as I nodded understandingly. So… that might have been a bit of an overshare, but what’s a little too much information between quadrant-mates?
Next there was Ashley Duvall. Ashley was a boy with what was, at the time, primarily a girls’ name. He was a cute, blond preppy kid with the longer hair kind of “Flock of Seagulls” hair on top and a fade on the sides and down the back. He wore a V-neck sweater from The Gap, khaki pants, and carried a messenger bag while the rest of us had standard issue Jan Sports. He was fairly quiet; not shy per se, but one of those types who wasn’t going to waste a bunch of meaningless words on idle chit chat. (Sidenote: that was the only year Ashley was preppy. By junior year he had a full blown leather ensemble going on, including assless chaps and a shiny Ducati motorcycle. He also took up smoking, and spoke even less than he did as a freshman. As you were.) Anyway, Ashley told us he had just moved from Rhode Island, which was, for us, definitely somewhat out of the ordinary.
Finally, there was Renata. Renata was from Guatemala- an exchange student who constantly drew pictures of miniature horses in various miniature scenes on her canvas binder. A horse in a pasture; a horse at the mall; a horse wearing pants; a horse in a Santa Hat on a drawn carriage at Christmas time. Renata spoke only Spanish, which pretty much left Roquilla and me to be the self-appointed spokespeople for the entire group. I didn’t think there was a way I could compete with the product of an intoxicated impregnated mother, so I bowed out of the spotlight and let Roquilla take the floor.
Mrs. Good instructed us to come up with a “Team Name” for our group. The four of us stared at each other. I awkwardly messed around with my mechanical pencil, pretending it was out of lead. Ashley picked at a thread hanging off his messenger bag. Roquilla took out her Dr. Pepper flavored Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker and began to apply another coat. Renata commenced another horse drawing with one of those fat ballpoint pens that had about 65 different color options at the click of a turning mechanism.
The volume around us rose as students began to brainstorm about what their team name would be. Laughter rang out as different name options were discussed and voted on. But our quadrant just sat there in clumsy silence, like serendipitous misfits or the members of “The Breakfast Club”. Finally Roquilla asked, “Do you guys have any ideas?” Ashley shook his head without looking up from the thread that was apparently so incredibly riveting. Renata shrugged her shoulders and replied, “No se.” Roquilla turned her attention to me. “Nope”, I said. The truth was, I probably could have come up with something. But I was afraid of throwing an idea out there that might get totally made fun of, so I just decided to be a complete parasite and mooch off of someone else more qualified to handle this task.
Mrs. Good began making the rounds, going from table group to table group, asking what their team name was and walking back to the chalk board to write it down. There were “The Flintstones”, “The 49ers”, “The Purple People Eaters”, and “Contagious Corn” (WTF??). Inevitably, she made it to our group. “And what’s your team name going to be here?” Mrs. Good asked in her cheerful, effervescent voice. Her request was met with four blank stares. “Oh come on, you guys, what’s your name going to be? You have to come up with something.” I squirmed in my seat as Ashley managed a fake cough attack.
It was Roquilla who broke the ice and saved us. She cleared her throat and said, “We Don’t Give a Shit.” Mrs. Good stood there for a brief few seconds with her hand cupped to her ear, blinked a few times and then began nodding a validating nod. “Okay.” She said kindly and affirmingly. “That works.” She spun on her clogs and clip-clopped over to the chalkboard. “WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT” she tapped out in a cloud of yellow chalk dust.
For the entire school year, that was our team name, although somewhere around Veteran’s Day the name was abbreviated; shortened to “W.D.G.A.S.” since A) the entire sentence was too lengthy to write out on group assignments, and B) the principal was making his rotations through the classrooms in late fall. Sure, Mrs. Good had tenure, but no one wants to be caught letting students use an expletive as their team name in the classroom, am I right?
So the moral of the story is, being in “Math A” has affected me never. Except for the people in there who made a fantastic memory in my treasure trove of remembrances from my youth. Kids, don’t be defined by your SAT scores, your math class, or any of that BS. Later in life, you will not give a shit. The End.