THE DAY WE STARTED LOVING MATH

This is sort of a love story. But not the one with a girl. This is about how we started loving Mathematics, “The most dreadful subject in the world”. Two years back we also saw mathematics the same way. But now, it’s completely different. We love math. Math is very interesting. It’s easy, fun and a lot more. This story tells you how our view about Math changed.

            Back in tenth class, boring as usual. We slept in almost all of our classes. There was one exception. Math class. We could not sleep. The class was so interesting that we couldn’t sleep. Instead, we felt to suicide. We were sitting in that class like dead bodies, with the eyes open. The cool thing about this was that we got time. Time to think about many things other than Math. We were in wonderland. We had to do nothing. Just look at the blackboard and sit. Teacher happy, we happy. But the problem was that if the teacher notices the slightest closing of an eyelid, the whole day is going to be world war 3. Then it’s going to be advices. It’s your future. You have to face it and all that stuff. Then its humiliation. After that it’s blackmailing. She says that she will stop teaching us that instant if we don’t make a decision. She says she will get out of the class. Then we say,” NO! NO! Please don’t go!!!” while in our mind we say,” Ya sure. Go on. Please go. Let us be happy for some time”. Then she tells us not to repeat it again. Then she gives a smile like nothing ever happened here. We never understood what she meant by that smile. We thought she must be mad. After all, who cares? And the next day she comes and the same ritual happens again. We get used to this after sometime so much that each day we used to expect todays ritual by looking at our watches. And most of the time it happens just when we expect it. Thinking of it now, the Math hour was not so boring at all. It was the teaching that was boring. The teaching was a disaster. We understood nothing at all. And she also came in and taught Math in all the free hours we had. This is completely true. No wonder none of us (MIST()RY) got full marks for Math in the exams (all exams). Moreover, she was our class teacher. That was a completely different experience. She scolded us for nothing. I’ll tell you about an incident that occurred when she was class teacher.

            It was in July. The science community of our school was going to be inaugurated. We all were in the science community. So we planned a program for the inauguration. It was about enacting the most influential and brilliant scientists to have ever lived on the planet. Like always, our show was excellent. Everyone in the school loved it. The principal called us and told that it was nice. But one person was not satisfied. Our class teacher. The next day morning she started scolding us one by one. She even scolded a girl who was completely innocent. She was supposed to speak about the scientists in the background during the show. We felt no problem with the presentation given that she didn’t get the material on time. But still it felt great to everyone. But not for the class teacher. She didn’t like it. She scolded the poor girl so much that she cried. After tenth class she left the school only because of this teacher. What a situation.

            And on that very day we took an oath. Never to perform anything on the stage, ever again. I mean, what else can we do? What if this happens again? The funniest thing is that from that day on, she started scolding one of us (Jeffin) every day for no reason at all. The hatred he grew towards her was limitless. That hatred spread to us. We also started hating her. But there was nothing we could do. She was a teacher. So we patiently waited for the year to be over.The next year we were afraid whether she will be teaching us. But that was not the case. A new teacher came for us. She changed the way we saw Math.

            She came into the class. A young lady who just graduated from Post Graduate studies. She looked like she couldn’t even pick up the Mathematics text book, which actually weighed a ton. She introduced herself and asked the students their names and started teaching. One minute into the class we thought, what a miracle!! She can teach!! Moreover, we understand!!! That too Mathematics!!! How wonderful!!! We thought we were dreaming. But no. We were actually listening to the class. We were understanding it. More and more classes came and we were loving mathematics like any other subject. This love could be seen in the marks of our daily class tests. We got full marks for the first test. Then the second. Then the third and it kept growing. We started forming a good relationship with the teacher and vice versa. We had some doubts on some topics and she solved it like putting a bandage on a wound, just easy as that. She stood by our side when we had some problems (social) like the one we wrote about in “THE FIRST MISTAKE OF OUR LIVES”, remember? Anyways her classes were great. Now we sit in class the same way we did in the other teacher’s class, except we are actually listening and are interested in the class. And she had no problems like the other teacher. No issues or anything of such matter. Once again teacher happy, we happy. It’s like a parallel universe. The same thing happens in both the classes but with a difference. How interesting.

            What we learned from this experience is that nothing is impossible. We thought studying and scoring full for Math was impossible. Teachers said,” you have to love the subject” and we think,” What!!! How the hell can we love Math???!!!” But it turned out to be possible. You might think the problem is with the teacher. Well, that is true in some cases, most of the cases. But, think of it like this. Math is fun. You have all these problems in your life. Some of them, you are able to solve. Others, you need help. Same thing applies for Math. Some problems you can solve, others you can’t. So, what you have to do is ask your teacher. Talk to her or him about something. Start growing a ‘like’ towards that teacher. Then you automatically start liking his/her class. Eventually the subject. This worked for us. And we are sure it’ll work for you too. Unfortunately we have no pictures on quotes to post here. So we will just type what we have to say in block letters;

        Nothing is Impossible

            Thank you for reading. Like always we don’t reveal the name of the main characters involved. Please leave your comments below. The next blog will be on or before 20^th March, 2016. So, stay tuned.