Detention Math

The math teacher was trying to teach about solving story problems using variables, but no one was listening to her because Dean was too busy making fun of the problem.”. . . and does anyone ever ask why Janet had forty watermelons? No, they just . . .”

“Dean,” the teacher said sternly, “I’m trying to teach a lesson here. And do you know why I can’t?”

“Because you don’t know the material?” Dean replied with a smirk.

Dean soon found himself sitting in detention waiting for the principal. When the principal came out of his office, he looked at Dean and sighed.

“Here it is the first week of school, and isn’t this already the second time this week, Dean?”

“Third,” Dean replied. “But who’s counting? I’m sure not. I can’t seem to get anywhere with numbers.”

“Mrs. Sanderson says that is because you tell too many stories,” the principal said.

“Well, maybe if I understood what the X she was talking about, she would know Y,” Dean replied.

Dean laughed at his joke, but a person has to see the variables X and Y written to know for sure why it’s funny. Yet the principal seemed to catch it and even laughed.

“Dean,” the principal said, “you’re a smart boy. There’s no reason you should be having this much trouble in math.”

“I guess it’s just that the teacher and I are not connecting,” Dean said.

They talked for a while longer, and then the bell rang.

“Head to your next class,” the principal said. “And try to not make my office your permanent residence.”

The next day when Dean walked into math class, he was late. He had to do chores and missed the bus. The teacher was not allowed to mark a student late if they rode the bus and the bus was late, so she asked, “Dean, did you ride the bus?”

“Nope,” Dean said. “I rode a camel.”

When the principal walked out of his office and saw Dean sitting there, he sighed. “Class only just started, Dean. How could you be here already?”

“The teacher asked me to find her X, so I told her if her X left her, she should find out Y and try to move on with her life, because her X probably wasn’t coming back.”

As Dean grinned, the principal shook his head, but Dean saw the hint of a smile. The principal went around behind his desk, sat down, and turned to face Dean.

“So, how do we get you to learn math, Dean?”

Dean shook his head. “Putting letters into equations makes no sense to me.”

“How about I try something different?” the principal said. “Suppose I gave you some coins, and told you that if you could show restraint and not spend them for a year, I would give you the same amount of coins again plus add a bonus one. A year later, you hadn’t spent the coins, so I did as I promised, bringing your total to seven. How many coins did I give you originally?”

“Three,” Dean said.

“Right,” the principal said. “How did you get it?”

“Well,” Dean said, “I thought if I gave the one coin back, I’d still have six. That would be two times the original. So six divided by two is three.”

“Perfect,” the principal said. “The coins are just the variable x, given meaning.”

“Wow!” Dean replied. “You make it so understandable. Why don’t you teach math?”

“I used to,” the principal replied, “but nobody likes a math teacher. Believe it or not, I found people dislike me less as a principal.”

It would be nice to say that Dean did well in his math class after that, but he didn’t. But he did start doing well in math in the principal’s office. He ended up there almost every day and passed the math exams with the highest grades, later becoming an engineer. Dean always said that detention math was the best math class he ever had with the best teacher.