Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

School Daze

#1

I enjoyed helping my kids with homework. When my daughter was in 4th grade, she was assigned a paper 3 pages long on the Titanic.
I asked her what kind of paper… report… news article… story…
She said anything about the Titanic.
Well believe it or not, this was before the internet was widely available. I didn’t have time to take her to the library for research… so I suggested she write a story about a little girl on the big boat. That way, she wouldn’t have to include any details.

So her paper went something like this...

One time, my mommy and daddy and my friend, Bobbie and I, went on the big boat… We had such fun… (A page and a half of filler… boat activities…)

Then late at night I had my birthday party… Daddy was a friend of the captain, I got to go way up where they drive the boat.
The Captain let me drive… but then I hit an iceberg… it got really exciting after that.
It was almost as bad as the time they let me drive the Hindenberg.

#2

True story… I’m good with math, as long as it doesn’t involve letters, numbers, or any attempt to come up with anything that resembles an answer.
This was my last attempt at algebra.

I took an algebra class in college.
Pre med…
I’d never graphed an equation before… Had never been into self abuse. Still am completely clueless why anybody of sound mind would graph an equation… Or, for that matter… What possible use that visual icon could be.

By the third class, we were supposed to be graphing equations…

I’m about as good as the next guy scribbling a squiggly line across a page…
Trying to come up with letters and numbers to their squiggly line proved a little more challenging, because I had no idea what letters and numbers were in the virtual toy box.
It may astound you… (As it did me…) That the teacher had the audacity to surmise that my grasp of the subject fell somewhat shy of the mark.

#3

Algroanby (algebra) has always eluded me, as soon as I think I had it I did not have it . Of course algebra has its uses I guess as in work problems Mary has 12 apples and bobby has 6 apples and the bear is in the woods walking and the fellow on the corner is smoking so using algebra find out what brand of bubble gum sally chews . M+12x6B— 1,200 over 1 = 18XBeXW= Hubba bubba into fish and Sally chews teaberry gum. nothing ever made sense to me but I was told it is problem solving using logic and math. The problem I listed is pure random gibberish so don’t try to figure it out LOL. As you can tell I know nothing about algebra.

#4

Nice, Ken!!!

It took our entire high-school class 2 years to complete a 1 year algebra class because nobody could understand the teacher. I would ask him what we needed to learn this for? His response was… You’ll need it for college. What I was really asking was… In what parallel universe is this subject remotely pertinant? And are you able to conceive of a far distant scenario where any of us would conceivably employ any of this?
Rumor has it that some folks survive and even thrive.
My older brother loved this stuff… But unfortunately squandered his gift and became an ER Doctor.

Lol