"It's Not My Thing"

Life throws us all curve balls.  I actually have no idea what that means, because baseball is not my thing, but I think it means we all find ourselves in situations where our tried and true skills are not helpful, and we have to figure out how to navigate  in new ways which we might not have expected.

That is why I was so surprised today when my son didn't want to calculate the measure of the third angle of a triangle because, in his words, "math isn't my thing."  How could math not be his thing?  I've been a math teacher almost my whole life (not taking into account the times when I wasn't.)   Therefore, all my children have to be math people too.  Otherwise, it just doesn't add up.

So I told him that.  I explained that it is impossible to exist as a function of half my DNA, and not love math.  I told him his love for math should go from n to infinity.  I told him that if math isn't his thing, then he better make it his thing.  Because it is so important, for school, for the SATs, for college, for the process of logical thinking, and for proof that he really is my son.  Then I decided to ask a non-math question: WHY does he think math isn't his thing?

So he said he likes to be more abstract.  He said when he answers a math question, I take him literally and don't take into account the nuance in his answer.  He said he feels that math is lacking in hyperbole and metaphor.  But isn't the unknown variable a metaphor, I asked?  Not really, he said, because there is only one right answer.  He would rather work on subjects that allow him to come to his own conclusion than to the expected conclusion.

Well, all that doesn't really speak to my logical side, but maybe its time for me to embrace my metaphorical side.  Because he is my son, and although he does have my math genes in there somewhere, they are expressing themselves very differently than I expected.  It might not be the outcome I was looking for, but it's a shining star of an outcome nonetheless.  A very welcome curve ball indeed.