Notes from Maine - 2023/06/18

When I was in school, math was both very easy and somewhat difficult for me. The easy parts were the homework and the tests. For homework, I would sit down with the book, glance at the chapter, and then work through the examples. To pass the test, all I had to do was remember a few of those lessons. I could have (maybe should have) done all that without one minute of classroom instruction. For whatever reason, my brain simply aligns with math, and everything falls in line.

But, like I said, it was also somewhat difficult. 

The first problem I had was disruption. The teacher was at the front of the classroom, trying their best to explain geometry, or algebra, or calculus, or whatever, and the students were staring, taking notes, and trying to ingest the information. Somewhere around first grade, I realized that I didn’t benefit from any part of that process. So I would stare off into space, daydream, doodle, or disrupt. I would pass notes, whisper, or heckle. My assigned seat was moved in every grade from second until twelfth. I never made it through a year without being “talked to” about my behavior. Most teachers put me front and center so they could keep an eye on me. They probably knew that I was just too bored to behave. It wasn’t that I knew everything beforehand, I was just incapable of learning math in a classroom setting, so I got proficient at learning it on my own.

My second problem was college. The college textbooks seemed to be written to confuse and disguise the concepts. I squeaked by in a couple of classes just through momentum and then I began to fail. I had to learn how to learn in a classroom setting and that took a lot of effort. I found myself unable to cope with this sudden stupidity. Before long, I was drinking before (and during) class, because that’s how I was coping with most things back then. Instead of flunking out, I switched my major to Electrical Engineering because that’s something I could do in my sleep. I coasted through my engineering, liberal arts, and electives, so I could focus on passing math.

During that period, I met some wonderful teachers and developed a true respect for their ability to reframe concepts until I finally understood. It occurred to me that I had probably been in the presence of plenty of amazing teachers before, but I had never bothered to notice.

Except one.

In retrospect, my best math teacher by far was Mr. Hansen at Kents Hill in Maine. He was my math teacher for junior year. Mr. Hansen (Hanny) changed my seat, of course, but he didn’t put me up front. He put me next to the window so I could look outside. I was also next to a row of paperback books that sat on the windowsill. If I started to fidget or whispered something to my neighbor (Dena), Hanny would walk over, pick out a book, and hand it to me. That’s why I read the paperback of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Stranger by Camus. Hanny didn’t make me do book reports, but he was happy to talk with me about the books after class as he sat in his little office, smoking incessantly. I brought up Vonnegut and he handed me Dostoevsky. If I mentioned that I was reading King, he would slide me a copy of Shirley Jackson. We rarely talked about math. 

At that time, the class was learning Math Induction. If you want to prove that 3^n - 1 is an even number, you first prove that it’s true for n=1, then prove that it would be true for n=k+1 given that it’s true for n=k. This is not a concept that’s easy to grasp from a textbook unless the textbook is extraordinarily well written. I learned it on my own because I was spending my class time buried in a novel. I always wanted to finish the book that Hanny gave me so I could talk to him about it. I thought we had a good friendship.

One time, in the dining hall, he spotted me while he was sitting down at a table with his wife.

He said, “Uh oh, my nemesis.”

I’m sure it was just a joke, but it changed the way I thought about our conversations. He was challenging me to funnel my excess energy into expanding my understanding of the world (through difficult literature). Apparently, I was a challenge to him as well, although I wouldn’t have guessed it until that moment.

After I left that school, I only went back to visit him once before he died. I wish I had gone back more. There was so much more to learn from Mr. Hansen, I’m sure. I still prefer to learn some things on my own. Memorizing a formula can get you the right answer, but you may never understand why. And math class will probably never demonstrate how you can only really be deeply hurt by someone who you love. That’s a lesson that I learned from a novelization of a play by Edward Albee—thanks, Mr. Hansen.