More Tales from the Classroom -- Riddles

Her name, she tells me, means "faith." She also tells me that no one has ever asked her about it... And she looks at me with eyes that are just a tiny bit more open.

"Faith" is a sullen faced African American girl child, and she has that bone structure that points to a royal ancestry. She is lovely, but when I met her, she wore her anger and frustration on her face like the armor one might don for a joust.

Like so many girls, Faith believes that she cannot do math. In her words, she "sucks at math." Just being in math class makes her anxious and fearful and unhappy. I have encountered this before. Many times. Elementary school math teaching tends to favor those who can compute, who learn the "rules" and apply them well, who are quick to process things mentally. Those who need longer to understand, who tend to come at things in some more round-about fashion, who struggle to rattle off the FACTS of multiplication and addition, learn early that they are just BAD at math. It isn't true, but that is what most elementary math education really teaches.

Much of my work, in the 6th grade, is aimed at breaking through that fear, and counteracting the messages that tell them they can't speak this language. We chant and cheer and dance and clap. We play games and we take our partners to the board with us when we work problems. Like contestants on the game show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," my kids learn that it is always OK to call a friend.

Things almost always improve while they are with me, but it takes time. The first grading period mid-term progress report may quite possibly show that math is still a challenge, and that is what happened for "Faith." I reported to her mother that she was missing some work, and not participating in class discussions -- not asking questions. Her mother told me that she was confused about how to use the concept of "order of operations," and that she was afraid to ask for help. Mom wondered if she needed to hire a tutor. I told her that I thought that might be premature. I suggested that perhaps Faith could spend 5 or 10 minutes with me at recess, and that we might clear up her confusion, and things would be fine. She said she would suggest that.

The next day, just as we prepared to go out for recess, Faith appeared at my side. "My mom said you might help me with my math," she said. I smiled at her and asked her to wait just a few minutes while I got the rest of the gang out to recess. She found a desk and sat down.

We went to the board together, and worked our way through a couple of examples. Nothing that we hadn't done in math class, but the room was quiet and it was just us. She asked a couple of questions, and we worked a couple of example problems together. She nodded her head and said, "This isn't hard."

I grinned at her and told her, "Nothing is ever hard once you know how to do it. You can always come and find me -- we can do this anytime." She smiled -- the first smile I'd ever seen from her. It made her lovely face light up, and I was thrilled. She went off to recess and I went to eat my lunch.

The next day, just at dismissal time, Faith appeared next to me and asked, "Do you like riddles?" I told her I wasn't very good at riddles, but that I thought they were fun anyway. So she said, "If you are in a room with no windows and no doors and all that you have is a table and a saw, how do you get out." It's a very old riddle, and I'd heard it as a child, but couldn't remember how it went.

"I don't know. Tell me," I said. She grinned and said, "You saw the table in half. A half and a half makes a whole. Then you climb through the hole and climb out."

I laughed out loud and exclaimed, "Oh! It's a math riddle! How wonderful!" She grinned and walked off, headed for home.

Faith. Indeed.

swan