Demon Clown Baby

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher didn’t teach us how to multiply fractions.

When I got to 7th grade pre-Algebra, that skill was taken for granted. I didn’t know what to do, and the teacher was of no help. Everyone else knew what they were doing, and I was scared to admit I had no clue. When the teacher found out, she was not understanding and made me feel like I was stupid.

In a panic, I asked to be transferred to Math. I got a very nice teacher and was much happier. I took pre-Algebra the next year; this put me a year behind, although as it turned out, with a mere week or two of tutoring I could have been brought up to speed. In college I took three semesters of Calculus and then Linear Algebra, so I wasn’t dumb in math. I just was in it all alone.

Therefore, in my senior year of High School, instead of taking Pre-Calculus, I was taking Trigonometry and Math Analysis, and half the class were Juniors.

The teacher was ridiculous. The younger students sat up front and encouraged his antics, the older ones sat in the back and make snide comments. I usually sat closer to the front, but not this class.

A very large portion of class time would be random stories that had nothing to do with math. We’d hear about his car, a decrepit VW Bus named Klaus, how he had a large pimple on his nose and ran a lot of hot water onto it, how he went to see Sliver expecting to see a lot of Sharon Stone nude, but was disappointed. The younger kids ate it all up, the seniors just suffered in silent rage.

At the end of the year, he asked us to write a letter to him about our experience in the class. I wrote a letter, one draft, handwritten, a real stream-of-consciousness type of thing. It was very cathartic, but when I was done, I decided it was too mean.

It was accurate, though. Everything I complained about, he really did, no exaggeration. In fact the reality was much worse.