Bad math

I lost it in the 9th grade. No, not what you're thinking, those were simpler times. I mean my ability to do math. I've always blamed my teacher, whose name I've forgotten so thoroughly that I couldn't pick it out on a multiple choice test. But I do remember that she was old, with haunted-house grey hair and huge folds and wrinkles. She was fat, and wore what I would later learn was a muumuu, with body parts flopping loosely around inside. She had warts, a lot of them. And she was crazy, yelling "I'm going right on" when any of us dared to raise a hand and ask a question.

This wasn't some hillbilly backwater. It was a class that did grades 7, 8, and 9 in two years, in one of the finest junior high schools in the New York City public school system, back when that meant the best education on the planet without paying for a New England prep school.

Yes, I've always blamed my teacher, that is, until this spring, when my older son, in the second half of 8th grade, lost it. He's not doing 7, 8, and 9 in two years, so it's exactly the same time as I lost it. And his teacher is notorious for being a bad teacher, even though the school is as close as Minneapolis comes to a New England prep school. The mothers, who pay more attention to this kind of thing than the fathers do, are up in arms. But I'm not so sure, and I'm not planning to join their lynching party. Instead, I'm spending my time thinking about the power of DNA molecules to direct our lives. And while I'm not discovering any hidden affection for my nameless math teacher, who's certainly been dead for 30 years, I'm ready to accept at least some of the responsibility.