When I graduated high school back in the hazy, lo-def days of the previous century, I remember having one distinct, overriding thought: Do not romanticize this.
I envy you getting to discover the wonder of calculus eventually. That was the first time I discovered that math was incredibly beautiful. I am a math teacher because of it. Please do yourself a favor and stick with it to calculus. It is like the punchline that brings all of the previous mathematical threads together.
You literally wrote “when you look back just remember they weren’t all good times” in my yearbook when we graduated. I also couldn’t wait to get out of high school and NJ but I did care a bit more about my grades. 😂 Glad to hear you are enjoying some classes now. I dropped Calculus senior year so maybe I should go back too....
I'm doing something similar with my daughter as she goes through high school. While I've become an avid reader as an adult, in high school I just hated it. Partly because it was something I was told I had to do, which I didn't much appreciate, and partly because the books we were assigned were trash. Classics, sure, but blech. I never cared much for Dickins or any of the Brontes and that's what we were assigned. I either bluffed my way through or borrowed my father's Cliffs Notes from our family bookshelves for the high-quality bullshitting essays. Procrastination and shortcuts run deep in my family. I'm glad to see times have changed and the quality of books assigned to high schoolers has somewhat improved. I'm rediscovering an affinity for Shakespeare and am finally getting around to reading To Kill a Mockingbird, the book she's currently reading in class.
Learning is way cooler in middle age when you don't care about being cool. Also, I look forward to hearing about your journey through Geometry, by far my favorite year of math class.
I envy you getting to discover the wonder of calculus eventually. That was the first time I discovered that math was incredibly beautiful. I am a math teacher because of it. Please do yourself a favor and stick with it to calculus. It is like the punchline that brings all of the previous mathematical threads together.
I had that moment. I think it was when the professor solved the area of a circle formula. Didn't go on to teach tho probably should have.
Inspired! I promise you I will make it to calculus. I want to see what all the fuss is about. I mean, Newton is a nice kid and all, but c'mon...
You literally wrote “when you look back just remember they weren’t all good times” in my yearbook when we graduated. I also couldn’t wait to get out of high school and NJ but I did care a bit more about my grades. 😂 Glad to hear you are enjoying some classes now. I dropped Calculus senior year so maybe I should go back too....
Really? Who are you?!?
I’ll never tell
(It’s Jen Curry 😂)
Who?
j/k j/k j/k
Hiiii! Email me or whatever to catch up!
I never, ever want to be in a classroom again. I DID MY NICKEL!
(In truth, as a mortgage broker, I have to attend classes all the time. I just don't want to ever want to be in anything related to academia.)
Excellent piece, Michael.
I'm doing something similar with my daughter as she goes through high school. While I've become an avid reader as an adult, in high school I just hated it. Partly because it was something I was told I had to do, which I didn't much appreciate, and partly because the books we were assigned were trash. Classics, sure, but blech. I never cared much for Dickins or any of the Brontes and that's what we were assigned. I either bluffed my way through or borrowed my father's Cliffs Notes from our family bookshelves for the high-quality bullshitting essays. Procrastination and shortcuts run deep in my family. I'm glad to see times have changed and the quality of books assigned to high schoolers has somewhat improved. I'm rediscovering an affinity for Shakespeare and am finally getting around to reading To Kill a Mockingbird, the book she's currently reading in class.
Learning is way cooler in middle age when you don't care about being cool. Also, I look forward to hearing about your journey through Geometry, by far my favorite year of math class.