The Moebius Stripper at Tall Dark & Handsome made me laugh out loud with this tale:
The Student Who REALLY doesn’t get math: As in, the one who asked me last week, in all earnestness, “to what extent” she would “have to use equations” in my class. I managed, in a feat that should surely mark me as a force to be reckoned with in the domain of improvisational theatre, to eke out a coherent yet tactful reply in which I succedeed (I think) in gently pointing out that this is a math class and that it we would do math things in it, and math things tend to involve equations of some form. (At least, math things at this level do. I’m sure that she didn’t want to hear “Oh, no, this class is ALL PROOFS.") Worried that she would break if I in any way made light of the situation, I did not add that if she could come up with equation-free means of solving for unknowns then she was certainly welcome to use them. She seemed disppointed and scared.
Mmmphghgh BWAh haha ha! I don't think I could have managed coherent yet tactful in that situation, much less a straight face. Then again, I was never tested to that level; despite springing stats 101 on several classes' worth of math-shy psychology majors, none of my charges was ever dense enough to admit to my face that they were hoping for a lack of equations in the class.
And had anyone been rash enough to bring in an entire jar of peanut butter when I was a graduate TA, they would have seen it rapidly confiscated, as I greatly enjoy peanut butter but couldn't afford to buy it on my tiny stipend.
Posted by kswygert at January 26, 2005 07:43 PM