Numbers Game

Orange Fractal   rcw

Fractals are fantastic. They're artistic representations of mathematics. I wonder if they'd been used while I was in school if I'd have learned numbers any better.

When I was in school, they were just starting the New Math; from my viewpoint even the teachers (in my case nuns) weren't entirely too sure about it.

I can only imagine Sister Christopher explaining things using the Mandelbrot!  You know, she'd probably have done a good job...and  she may have even reached my slow brain. She was an excellent teacher, one of the few back then who tried to reach me. 

I think she even saw my mental problem for what it was and did her best to work with me.  One time she even commented to me once that in math class I seemed like a completely different person than in science class.  Perhaps she figured it out.

We had about fifty kids in the class, so it can't have been easy.  Some of the kids were afraid of her.  I was too, in math class.  But in science class, we were in some ways more like colleagues than teacher and student.
It mystified her (me too) that I could barely add, subtract, multiply or divide but could do lab work, understand complex theories and even enjoy things like genetics. Go figure.

But it is to Sister Christopher's credit that I continued to try, even to this day, to improve my relationship with numbers.  And to her I offer eternal gratitude.

So for today, Fifty Five Is The New Numbers Game....one we all play every day.