In the event mathematics was a living being we would have never been friends. Funny enough we would not be enemies either.
We would just be there. Put more plainly we would be like in-laws, deep respect for each other and no questions asked.
This is not the case in the scenario here. Mathematics is not a being, but a subject. It was and and continues to be a compulsory subject from nursery school to high school.
My first interaction with mathematics was in lower primary school. I cant really remember what happened in nursery school. I remember, though crying most of the time in that first year of education.
Unlike nowadays where children have to contend with baby class, pre-unit and such other trappings I started at nursery school.
It was not until in class 2 that I finally realized I was in school for a long time to come when I realized I had to study all the way to class eight.
Our lower primary school teacher was intent on making us not only pass in maths but embrace the same.
He was perturbed that we barely comprehended sums.
He attempted all tricks to make us understand simple sums of addition and subtraction.
He used to encourage us to use our fingers and toes to do maths.
We duly obliged.
If you recall lower primary school mathematics involved numbers below 100.
You would get sums like forty minus twenty eight, sixty plus thirty two and such like.
It was therefore too hard to calculate these sums.
They looked big and menacing, it is like algebra in high school where they used to tell us to expand funny looking equations. Things we have gone through!
At first it seemed easy, counting with fingers. If for example one had to add eight plus seven it was easy to count seven fingers and eight toes then to count all of them at once, you would have your answer.
This tread continued for a few days. Things changed when the teacher decided top give us sums that exceeded the total number of toes and fingers.
He would give us random numbers like forty six plus thirty two.
Thats when my respect for mathematics reached climax. It was not until in high school algebra classes that the hate and respect for maths grew a notch high.
To count forty six you had to count the tips of the fingers which normally amount to ten, then count the furthest joints which am told are celled distal phalanges. The number would now be forty and then you had to count the second joints otherwise known as intermediate phalanges by people who studied sciences more than us.
You would then count the third joints whose scientific name has deserted me a unto six. Remember after the tips of the fingers had been counted then to point at the joints one had to use his chin to isolate and count the remaining numbers.
This you would put down the number in a paper.
The next step would be isolate thirty two. Since fingers had been used it was only proceed to the toes. We never used to wear shoes so counting the numbers using toes was not a problem.
The most disconcerting thing about this method was disruption.
There was a tendency for someone to disrupt you when you were just about to finish counting and then adding your isolated numbers.
Once you were disrupted you would forget all the numbers and the process had to start again. Life.
ends
