Yesterday Franny recited a poem about mashed potatoes in front of her class. The children were given a couple of weeks to memorize their poems, which Franny did right away, and then sort of forgot about it for a week or so, then refreshed before she went in. Strudel listened attentively and was a good audience during her sister’s practice sessions, and when Franny returned home triumphantly and announced that everything had gone splendidly, Strudel jumped in and said the poem front to back without batting an eye. Strudel has a knack for memorizing things casually as Franny grapples with learning them, then spewing them out at inopportune moments.
“YES YES you have it,” snapped Franny, cutting Strudel in the middle of the final verse of the poem.
Strudel also finds other little fissures to thrust her tiny irritation tentacles into. Franny has low moments while doing math at times. Math facts sort of slide around and get mixed up. There is a particular deer in the headlights stare that Franny gets when what she knows leaves her and her mind is a blank.
I used to get the same look on my face. I was the last child to complete the timed tests that we had to take OVER and OVER and OVER until we passed. And by last, I mean weeks after all the other children had finished. My face burned with shame every afternoon as the teacher quietly timed me while everyone else did their silent reading.
Finally, it clicked one day. I had memorized the answers in their correct order. I did not even need to look at the problems. I had learned something, but probably not what I was supposed to have learned. I am fond of saying I did not really learn how to do math until I was 27. True facts.
Franny often lays her head down on her paper and taps her pencil while she takes a break from her math homework.
“A number times zero is always ZERO,” Strudel will say cheerfully into the anguished, frustrated silence. Franny sighs.
Strudel is deviling everyone at the moment. She is a huge fan of YOU ALWAYS and YOU NEVER and she will shiv a bitch if we cut her apples the wrong way.
I tried addressing the behavior and providing negative consequences, and the kid can hang on. I think her middle name should be “Tenacity,” which would be a totally awesome Pilgrim virtue name, don’t you think? I’d take Tenacity over Prudence any day.
One morning this week I woke up and it came to me–the thing I had not tried. It was time for a good old fashioned ignoring. Now when she flips her shit she is completely dead to the tribe. If she has anything remotely constructive to say regarding how she feels I acknowledge her, but otherwise she is shunned. No reaction, no need to continue the performance.
And I feel compelled to tell you the reason this letter is so utterly dull is because I really have nothing to tell you of any real importance. I was sick for a week and a half which is long for me. I suppose I could tell you that SeaFed tried to claim Franny on his taxes, despite not paying a dime in child support or for any of her insurance or upkeep beyond feeding her and clothing her on her brief visits to his far-away house. How we laughed. I am looking into buying a new desktop. I am going to Los Campisinos next week. Work is eating me LESS, which means my powers of evil are growing and returning. Soon orcs will be spewing out of my ears again and I will drive hobbits before me and hear the lamentations of their women &etc.
Hope you are well and xoxoxo,
SJ
Aw, much sympathy for Frannie. My poor, long-suffering mathematician of a father knew that blank stare of resigned horror very well, after many tear-soaked three-hour math homework extravaganzas. And then I went to art school, where I was never asked to do Algebra ever again, and it was glorious. Hang in there Frannie!
Also, my husband and I have a long-running inside joke about our fictional daughter named Tenacity Happenstance. I am seriously considering it as a naming option if we ever shoot enough DNA at each other to make an actual baby.
Oooh, I like that name even more. Yeah, I was the teary algebra kid. Temple Grandin says that we types may do better at geometry. I only got one crack at it, and I had suffered through four years of algebra by then, so I was well over it.
Thanks for this post. i live with two tenacious little buggers and like to hear about others of their ilk. Actually they are more like intractable than tenacious, but it doesn’t have a frontier name ring to it.
And in real life I only seem to encounter families with obedient, inactive children and mine look like wild animals in contrast even though I am 99% sure they are just ::normal::
I had the same thing going on as Frannie with fractions. Fractions could make me cry. And then in year 7 i got a good maths teacher and LO! I could understand! But the damage had already been done, and if I didn’t get a maths concept easily after that I would go into emotional free fall. Will stop wittering on now.
Bring on the powers of evil!
And yes, I took away more than that from this post. GOD.
Temple Grandin is probably right – Geometry *was* relatively breezy, despite having the most chauvinist math teacher of my entire school career that year. Proofs were like writing out recipes for triangles and squares. But it was just a brief respite, unfortunately.
Oh my god I hate those timed tests!
I can’t even be in the room now as an adult when seven-year-olds are taking them. It’s just too stressful.
Every so often my husband talks about being the first one in the class to pass all of them, and then I have to hate him retroactively.
Ah! Tax shenanigans!
My husband and I had a fun one recently when my father decided to claim me as a dependent, despite that being nonsense.
He does contribute to my upkeep and school expenses, which makes up for some of the downsides of staying in regular contact with him, but the rule of law (as I’m sure you are aware) is that you must contribute x portion of an individual’s yearly income in order to claim them. We had all agreed several years prior that since my spouse and I both worked full-time and cohabitated, it would look hella suspicious for my father to continue to claim me.
And lo, it apparently DOES look hella suspicious! For no apparent reason, and in complete defiance of our agreement and tax law, he claimed me last year. And then promptly had a fit when the IRS sent him a very threatening letter regarding the impossibility of this ploy. Which, of course, was MY FAULT. Oooooh yes.
The thing that kills me is that he’s in one of those rich people tax brackets where they phase out all your deductions. What was the point?
Aw, poor Franny. I too am the product of a scientist father who tried to teach me the quadratic equation when I was but a wee lass in pre-algebra. So many hours and tears, the “you’re not trying” and “if you’d just listen”. I feel for the Franster. But I turned out all right. Sort of. I went to law school because it required no math, and um, it turns out? I’m good at tax law. Which requires math.
I have two fictional sons named Colton and Colby! I have another fictional child on the way, if it’s a girl I’m going to name her Aubryaunna Neveah and if it’s a boy I plan to name it Jacen Bradyn.
My city is pretty white-trash.
Oh my poor boy had that math thing. I HATE that schools do the timed test. Why put that kind of fucking pressure on the kids to do it fast? Isn’t right enough? I’ve been homeschooling him now for a year (uh, not just for math issues but a full host) and it’s been awesome. I think, *just* now is he starting to do math naturally very quickly because he realizing he DOESN’T HAVE to do math quickly and so the paralyzing pressure is off. Seriously, it’s taken 12 actual months to deprogram the anxiety from it. It makes a smart kid question their smarts.
Just checking in as an actual, honest-to-god about to have a phd mathematician, and I was terrible at math all through elementary school. Failed timed tests, had to stay in from recess to finish the worksheets, everything. So I don’t really know what it is they think they’re accomplishing with them… I didn’t get good at math until it turned into “things to figure out” instead of “things to have memorized”.
I really did shiv a babysitter for putting the jelly on top of the peanut buttered slice, instead of on the opposing slice.
Asshole, I gotta tell you, Tenacity would have been an awesome Pilgrim name. Would they have stoned her to death for living up to her moniker?
I was thinking Mendacity would be a good name for Tenacity’s foe. You know, the spoiled blonde chick to the brunette Laura Ingalls Wilder.