Math, sweat and tears.

Photos !-5
Julius Shultz,
Ammba Shultz
Manhattan
2007

Notice the progression in the photos.


























It has been my experience that the teacher makes the subject for the student. I think everyone can remember a time when a teacher really brought to life a subject thought to be boring.I am of the opinion it's at that moment they return the favor done for them. Today I was fighting an uphill battle with Ammba to study math. It was not going well, and I decided to try something new. After a break and lunch I started to talk about the book series she was reading, "Maximum Ride". It's an adventure story about mutant bird kids running from the scientists that created them. There's a part where the youngest member of the flock gets kidnapped. They struggle desperately to come up with a plan to secure her safe return.
She asked me "What are they going to do to get her back?". I replied " Normally there's a ransom demand." Ammba asks " What's a ransom demand?" This is where I steered the topic back to math.. I said "O.K., let's say you're kidnapped and I get a ransom note" Ammba replies " Who's going to kidnap me?" I answered " Let's pretend" "O.k." she replies.. I took this opportunity to combine lessons. We each wrote a ransom note asking for various amounts of money and where to deliver it. This made it more interesting for both of us. We checked grammer, spelling, the geography of the drop site and our get away plan. How we were going to split the ransom became a hot topic of discussion. It seemed my offer of 65% for me and 15% for her didn't appeal to her sense of fairness. I mentioned that we were criminals and an intense debate about fairness was inherently hypocritical. This sentence covered the vocabulary for the day.. We finally agreed on 75% for me and 20% for her. After splitting up the monopoly money she became agitated and suspicious, saying " Hey ! This can't be right,.you have more than twice the money I do". I said "Hey, this is your first kidnapping and 20% is more than fair. Trust me. Why would I cheat you ?" She grins knowingly and replies emphatically "Maybe because you're a criminal!" I answer " It hurts me to hear you say that after all we've been through." She retorts "boo hoo! buy some Kleenex with your cut. I still think you're cheating me." I offendedly reply "O.k., go ahead and count it, if you don't trust me. In fact, why don't you figure out what's fair.?" Less securely she says " I think I will. Put all the money in the middle and I mean all of it. I'm watching you." I ask " Do you even know how much there is?" Squinting she thinks and says "Yea, I do. 83% of $99,000 " I smile and say " 100% correct. So how many dollars do I get?" She bites her lip and starts writing and writing, then scratching out and finally she looks up at me and growls ."Papi, you tricked me. We're doing percents again, you know I don't know how to do that." I say " Then why did you agree to 20%? Which by the way, is a complete rip off.." Ammba replies " What's a rip off?" All of this just developed, it wasn't planned. I saw a way back to math with the splitting of the ransom. We both had a good time and learned new things about each other. She asked for 1/2 of the money and I said "No, but you can have 55% if you can tell me how much that is." Fractions to decimals and finally to percents. She discovered that even the split didn't add up to 100%. On the drive home she asked "Who are some famous kidnappers.?" I reply " Oh, famous ones, well let me think. Saco and Vanzetti are very famous." She smiles and says " Yea we are Saco and Vanzetti, world famous.kidnappers. What happened to them? Straight faced I say" Ask your grand father he'll know for sure." She says "I will when I get to Mommy's house." . I drop her off and she says " I don't mind studying if its fun like today." I smile and say "I agree baby, I agree." I can't wait to hear from my father, he's going to flip.Wait a minute, what did happen to them? I'll let you know tomorrow what I find out. Jody