Connor Kents Task 2

Maths is seen by many as the most evil of subjects. Many of us can relate to the teacher’s continuous drone as she spouts math equations like a water fall. Or the poor little kid with glasses who just managed to pass on the info to his friend about the answers being in the back of the book, before being yelled at to be silent. Or the kids starring at the clock wishing time would go faster but in truth, despairing as there is still ages to go.  My own maths experience might have been similar if it were not for Mrs Shanfield in year 5.

My vivid memories of maths in Year 5, is it of being inspiring and fun. Just the pleasure of being in her class made me a better maths person. She helped me to achieve the levels of excellence in Maths Olympiads when the year before I was in the bottom maths class. And the once boring formulas came alive and have in fact become very useful from time to time. One such occasion is when my parents took my sister and me to a new Sunday school.

I was short for my age in year 5 and was occasionally picked on because of my size. I remember one certain proudly tall girl at this new church who picked on me in front of everyone exclaiming that, I was too small to be in year 5.  So I repeated pie to her. 3.1415926535897932384626433832795022884197. Unfortunately see couldn’t grasp the concept but there was one older high school kid who knew the significance of it, as he had seen the movie, ‘Night in the Museum’ where the curator needed it to bring the evil dead to life.  He was further impressed when I repeated the Fibonacci code which was in the Davinci code, 0,1,1,3,5,8,13,21.  He decided to be my friend and told me all about the movie. As you can guess, the girl didn’t bother me again.

My current teacher’s class in high school has returned to the standard, ‘open to page 5 and write out all the questions’, which is more than pointless. But what can you do? The teacher knows best! It is only early in the year, however, and it may pick up. Actually I was slightly astounded when I was placed in lower group E for maths this year but I realized that I never had been very good at writing exams straight after 2 months of holiday and hence my results were probably below my usual marks. At the moment I am content to stay where am. My new math’s teacher was slightly amazed when I completed all my homework in one night when it was due the next weekend. I was rewarded with 14 mini merits. It just shows a little work at the right time will bring in the results.