Thursday, December 19, 2013

Middle School

The teachers at Patton Middle School continue to present an excellent challenge to the Young Relative and his fellow students. He's studying mutant cells, polynomials, the Revolutionary War (they're staging three scenes, including the Boston Tea Party) and Nobel Prize winners (about whom he has to write a report in the form of a newspaper article -- YAY!) as well as surprising his Secret Santa recipient and serenading his classmates with Christmas songs.
Over dinner the other night he repeated that oft-heard complaint about algebra: "When am I ever gonna use this?!"
"On your next test," replied his father immediately. Snap!
Our united front on behalf of algebra, however, was lessened considerably when neither his father nor I could remember the long-ago-memorized Quadratic Formula and had to look it up online. (OK: can YOU remember it?) The Young Relative said that when he becomes a world-famous Nobel Prize winner himself and writes his autobiography, he will note how he had to overcome the handicap of having such mathematically challenged family members.

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