Chapter 14 — Math Anxiety

Early in the week before Christmas vacation, Billy Edwards in Algebra class, slumped nearly horizontal and rubbed the back of his neck on the back of his chair in discouragement, confusion, and boredom. Mr. Marvin, young, tall, energetic, and bearded, was starting all over again to explain positive and negative numbers. Billy didn’t care. His homework had been all wrong, and he had seen all he wanted to see of Mr. Marvin’s horrible number line. “Edwards, get off the back of your neck and sit on that part of your anatomy which the Almighty cushioned for the purpose, and tell me what 4 + 1 is.” Billy returned to consciousness and heaved himself wretchedly erect to the snickers of his colleagues, saw the figures written on the board, saw Mr. Marvin standing expectantly with his chalk on the fourth mark to the right of 0, heard the question echoing in his head, and answered “5.” “Keerect!” shouted Mr. Marvin. “Now what is 4 + 0?” He wrote that below the first figures. “4,” said Billy. He was really with it now. “What about 4 + (-1)?” asked Mr. Marvin. Billy froze. He didn’t even ask himself what the parentheses meant, how you could have + and - at the same time? He just froze. He saw the numbers on the board with his eyes, he heard the question with his ears, but a shutter came down over his brain and the question bounced off. “I don’t know.” Someone snickered. Hands waved in the air. “Come now, Billy. If 4 + 1 = 5 and 4 + 0 = 4, what does 4 + (-1) equal?” Hands waved, fingers snapped, Mr. Marvin waited. Panic mounted, the impenetrable shutter was down tight. Billy reached for some answer, any answer, and said “0.” The class laughed out loud, some because they were so glad it was Billy and not they; others because they knew the answer. “Phillips.” “3.” “Right. Now if 4 + (-1) = 3 what does x + (-y) equal?” He wrote it on the board. “x - y,” responded Phillips. “Right. Now do you see that, Billy? The rule for addition is if the signs are different…” But Billy didn’t see. The rule hammered against the shutter 1ike hail on the windowpane. Mr. Marvin pressed on, presenting the concept logically, questioning those who had failed on the homework, covering the board with letters and numbers, parentheses, + and - and = signs and counting off spaces on his number line. It was a brilliant piece of exposition, but Henry Phillips and Jonesy, who understood it anyway, soon got tired of it; others, whose minds were shuttered like Billy’s, were scarcely conscious of it, and a few who had been on the verge of comprehension, comprehended. Henderson, like Paul on the road to Damascus, burst out “You mean, sir, that if the signs are the same you add and if they are different you subtract.” “Glory be!” ejaculated Marvin. “You got it – almost. If you start with a positive number, that works.” But Billy was down on the back of his neck again and only came to when the bell rang. The shutter came up, he sprang for the door with the rest, and Algebra was over the dam for today. There was a math test on Thursday, through which Billy sat, grabbing at any answers that floated by on his stream of consciousness, convinced that there were no correct answers, that if there were, he would 64

not get them, and that if he did, it would be purely a matter of good fortune. But math was forgotten in the excitement of departure for vacation. A dormitory party took the place of study hall on Friday night with Mr. Cunningham playing the part of the bearded saint in an improvised costume distributing little presents to each boy with a rhyme to go with each. Billy got a red and yellow scarf with the citation:

“Bill’s a Tiger burning bright Playing wing or inside right. Traps and shoots with eagle eye And brings K.A. the victor-eye.”

“Neat,” exclaimed Mr. Floyd – “Don’t apologize to William Blake.” There were doughnuts, cookies, cider, and crepe paper decorations galore. Mr. Floyd played the piano and everyone sang, picking up the familiar but almost forgotten words as they went along. In the morning, three long yellow buses crawled around the drive, ate up the boys and their bags and suitcases one by one, and crawled off toward Bath and Boston. By ten o’clock a blessed silence had descended on Kennebec Academy and its resident faculty. Billy’s father met him on the station platform in Stamford. He was surprised to see that the boy carrying his son’s suitcase and wearing his son’s clothes was not the little kid he had left at school in September. The meeting was awkward. “Hi, Dad.” Mr. Edwards moved to pat Billy’s shoulder in greeting as he used to do but the shoulder was higher, the voice a little different, and the features strangely altered. He changed the motion toward a handshake, rejected that, and ended by picking up the suitcase, his tongue stumbling over “Well, glad to see you made it.” On the way home in the car, though, both loosened up as Billy poured out the story of the fall - how Mr. Cunningham had chased them around the drive, how the Tigers had won their game, how Johnny had fallen through the ice. His father had inquired about Mr. Floyd, Mr. Hanshaw, and Mr. Sawyer and elicited the information that they were “all right,” that Mr. Floyd was an acceptable dormitory master, that Moose Hanshaw was unduly tyrannical, that Mr. Sawyer was “a good guy,” and that the food was frightful - vile - that he had actually found a horseshoe nail in the hamburg. As he opened the front door, Mr. Edwards called, “Ma, here’s your boy.” His mother had embraced him embarrassingly before the door was closed, but he was glad to be home. He settled almost into the old groove he had left in September. His room was delightfully the same - same bed, same curtains. But the same bedspread with pictures of spacemen on it struck him as a little faded and less interesting than he had remembered it. His collection of matchbox cars which his mother had arranged on his dresser was dull, and the photograph on the dresser of him with his father and mother at the beach last summer looked like someone else’s family. However, almost everything else was so comfortable that the prickles of change affected him but little. Three days later, as his father picked through the mail before dinner, he found near the bottom of the pile an envelope from Kennebec Academy containing Billy’s report card and comment sheet. He looked down the left hand column, two C’s and a C-, a D and an E. He was surprised. He was shocked. He was outraged. He swore, vigorously and out loud, that he would get to the bottom of this. He called Billy before him.

After a confrontation and inquisition, Mr. Edwards elicited the information that Billy’s science teacher was “dumb,” that the metric system was incomprehensible and unnecessary, that his French teacher hated him, would never answer a question, and jabbered all the time in French, and that as for Algebra, he didn’t get it and the teacher went too fast and never explained anything. The next morning at his office, Mr. Edwards dictated a letter to Mr. Sawyer.

Mr. Benjamin Sawyer Kennebec Academy Bath, Maine 04530

Dear Mr. Sawyer: I am in receipt of the Academy’s report on my son William’s progress, or lack of it, during the fall term. I sent him to you with the understanding that you would prepare him for Yale. Obviously he has not learned to study and his record would never get him into Slippery Elm Teachers College, let alone Yale. I have sent him to you at considerable financial sacrifice and cannot see any evidence thus far that the school has justified this sacrifice. Therefore, I shall suggest strongly that you take several specific measures. Action item #1: I want Billy removed from his present French class and put with a teacher who will teach him something. He tells me that his current teacher refuses to answer questions and talks nothing but French in class. This is an impossible situation and smells to me of a modern “progressive” namby pamby attitude. He should be required to memorize vocabulary and verb-forms the way we were. Action item #2: He must be required to do extra work in Algebra. This is the teacher’s responsibility. He has failed to meet it. If, as he says in his comment, Billy has “failed to learn the concepts with which we are dealing,” the said concepts should be explained to him and he should be made to sit down and memorize them.

Action item #3: Billy should not be permitted to participate in athletics until his work is done each day and until he has earned at least C in each course. I sent him to you to be educated, not to fool around with a little kid’s soccer team. If it were a man’s sport like football, it might be a little different, but it is my wish that he not play any game until his work is done. I am spending a lot of money on Billy’s education and am willing to spend more if I get results. I want assurance from you that these changes will be expedited and that William’s next academic report will be satisfactory. With best wishes for a pleasant holiday season,

Sincerely,

William T. Edwards

This letter crossed in the mail with a Christmas card from the alumni office showing the 1903 school building under a pristine blanket of snow with a Christmas wreath on the door and Happy Holidays in German type below it. Mr. Edwards growled sarcastically as he passed it across to his wife, “If they taught the kids to study as they did in my day, there would be something to be happy about.” Faculty meeting in the Library the day before school re-opened. Assistant Headmaster Hanshaw presiding. The faculty disposed comfortably on the upholstered library furniture. A dying fire in the fireplace. It was warm in the room in contrast to the cold dusk falling outside, the pale sky reflecting on the clean snow. It had been a long meeting, dealing with the individual problems of one boy after another. Mr. Hanshaw: “Edwards. 2 C’s, a C- in science, D in French and E in Algebra. I have a letter from his father demanding a change in French teacher, massive extra help in Math, and no athletics. Mr. Rossignol, what about the French?” “The boy does not participate. He sits there with his mouth half open and his mind half shut and does nothing. When I push him, I find his accent - well, suburban, his grammar execrable, and his vocabulary non-existent.” “How did he get a D if he’s that bad? “As you wish. An E, then. I wanted to encourage him.”

“Shall we take him out of your class? He can’t possibly go into the fast section. Can he drop the course and repeat next year?” Mr. Sawyer: “Can’t we keep him in touch with the language at least? There are several others in the same difficult case. Perhaps we can find a way to put together a slow, slow section which can spend the rest of the year just getting used to the idea of a foreign language. Let me work on it.” Rossignol (sub rosa) “Saints defend me from that!” “What about the math, Jeff?” “He is terribly disconnected. A classic case of math anxiety. I haven’t got through to him yet, but I’ll keep at it. He’s not dumb. He’ll come.” Gus spoke up. “But don’t take him out of athletics. It’s good for him. He is all afire with energy. He’d explode. And he can’t study more than half an hour at a time anyway. Besides, I want him for a cox in the spring.” Mr. Hanshaw: “He ought not to do that if he doesn’t do better in Math. Crew takes too much time. He can play softball.” Gus drew breath to object but Mr. Floyd broke in: “The boy is coming. He has brains and guts. We have seen it in English and History and on the soccer field. And he was the one who pulled Cluett out of the pond. He’ll be all right. He needs to grow up a little more and he needs encouragement and motivation. He has plenty of time. Crew will be the best thing in the world for him. I’ll handle Bill Edwards for you.” “Oh, never mind him,” said Mr. Sawyer. “I will answer his letter all right.” The meeting wore to a close, ending in a vigorous denunciation of primitive table manners and barbaric dress culminating in a call for all-out reform by Messrs. Evanston and Bright. Mr. Johnson made a motion to table the matter and Mr. Edgehill quickly moved to adjourn to dinner. The fire was left to glow in the warm dark. “January 4. School reconvenes for the winter term. Boarders will arrive before 6 p.m.” They arrived as advertised. The dormitories, dark for two weeks, blazed with light from every window. Boys gathered in each other’s rooms, exchanging tall tales of vacation conquests, of which maybe 20 percent would stand examination. In due course, however, the dormitories quieted, the lights blinked out, even the whispered conversations in the dark were stilled and the Academy slept. By ten o’clock the next morning, the school was in “go ahead” gear as if there had never been a vacation. As he expected, Billy was called to Mr. Hanshaw’s office where he received a great deal of good advice on meeting his daily responsibilities in a new French class, on actively seeking extra help in mathematics, and justifying the sacrifices his parents were making in sending him to Kennebec. Mr. Hanshaw was quiet in demeanor, serious in tone, and treated Billy as a person responsible for his own future. It was a good job, but when Billy left the office he left in a hazy whirl of good resolutions and left George Hanshaw with the frustrating knowledge that he had not really got through to where Billy lived.