Due to a massive Polar Vortex taking a direct aim at my house almost two weeks ago, pipes froze in three locations of my house, prompting my mom and I to fire up all of the space heaters and hair dryers the circuit could handle to thaw things out before the pipes burst.
One of these pipes was in my bedroom, with the only way to access it being through the ceiling of my closet. Taking our plumber’s advice, I took everything out of my closet, got a hammer, and broke a hole in the ceiling to access the frozen pipe. From there, I alternated between a space heater and a hair dryer until, several hours later, water finally began to flow through the faucets.
Crisis averted.
In the chaos, I’d carelessly thrown everything out of my closet, and one storage box full of books had spilled all over my bedroom floor. While I was cleaning things up and putting them away, I noticed that one of the books that had spilled out of that box was an old yearbook. Specifically, it was my fifth grade yearbook.
It had been a very long time since I’d flipped through the book, so I decided to do so till I found my picture. I also found my 5th grade teacher’s picture, and couldn’t help but remember how she’d treated me.
Like many of my K-12 teachers, my fifth grade teacher didn’t have the ability to cater to my needs. After all, she was a fairly new teacher with almost thirty other kids to worry about. Naturally, she couldn’t teach things my way, so I really struggled. And as a result of that struggle, I was barely a C-average student who was often punished for “not doing the math right”.
By fifth grade, I was pretty much done with school, in the sense that I was miserable, anxiety-ridden, and constantly getting sick over it. Words can’t express how much I hated school, or how bad my anxiety had become. In fifth grade, I simply wanted to hole myself in my bedroom 25/8 and never leave. Because of this, I barely remember fifth grade (or fourth, or third, or any of those grades for that matter, but out of all those years, fifth grade’s the one I remember the least), so I can’t recall exactly why I was struggling so much (I’m sure my parents can, though). But I certainly remember the emotions of that year. Emotions that I had to work through in therapy as recently as last year (2023).
Sixth grade wasn’t any different. In fact, it was worse than fifth grade, because my sixth grade math teacher and my sixth grade science teacher both resorted to publicly shaming me for “doing the math/science wrong”. Of course, that emboldened my peer bullies (who’d already deemed me a target because I was too sickly, small, and quiet to do anything about it), made those teachers into bullies, and made me despise math and science completely. At that point, I’d been convinced by multiple teachers across multiple schools that I was completely hopeless at math, and I’d never amount to anything if Cystic Fibrosis didn’t kill me first.
Predictably, seventh grade wasn’t any better. In fact, I had to leave that school in the middle of the year for greener pastures at a school in downtown Denver, due to the bullying and my failing grades. While life wasn’t perfect at that school, it was still significantly better than my previous school. I went from an F-average student to a C-average student with a B in Pre-Algebra by the time I got my first report card back.
Unfortunately, my experience at my previous school had physically beaten me down so much that, just after Christmas break, I ended up hospitalized with a severe MRSA infection. Being in the hospital sucked major ass (of course), but I’ll never forget the night my algebra teacher, on his own time after school, drove twenty miles to Anschutz Medical Campus where I was to make sure I was caught up in math and didn’t fall too far behind. That was the first time a teacher had ever shown me any real, genuine kindness, and to this day, thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.
In other words, things weren’t all bad for me in K-12, though had I and my family known our rights more thoroughly back then, I’m sure we could’ve sued multiple schools for screwing me over as they did. Hell, even now I’d be well within my rights to write some scathing pieces naming and shaming every school and teacher that ever wronged me. But that’s super petty and just asking to stir up tons of needless drama. So I’m just gonna take George Carlin’s advice by not sweating the petty things, or petting the sweaty things.
Instead, I’ve largely moved on to other, more important things. It took an awful lot of therapy, journaling, and facing my fears head-on by going to college and diving head-first into a five-credit Astronomy lab course, for me to let go of my K-12 experiences. When I was taking College Algebra, my mom was out of town during the first week or two. I called her one night in tears because the syllabus scared the shit out of me, and all I could think was, “I’m gonna fail. These math and science teachers were right about me. I’m gonna fail. I’m gonna embarrass myself. I’m a fucking idiot completely incapable of doing basic arithmetic.” on and on.
A week later, my dad took me out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Peking-Tokyo, and I very vividly remember telling him, “Dad, a third of the class already dropped the course, but the refund date has passed. Chances are, I’m gonna eat shit in this class, but I promise I’ll do my best, and I’ll tackle it again in the fall.”
My dad gave me a skeptical scowl as he sipped some tea, gently put the cup down and sighed, “You say that, but I don’t believe you’re gonna flunk this course. If you try your best- which I know you’re gonna do because you’re way smarter and more capable than you think you are- you’ll pass this class no problem… Even if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I spent way more money on skiing this season than I’ll ever spend on your community college tuition, so don’t feel bad if you fail. But you won’t fail…. You’ll do just fine…”
And… well… Dad was right. As was my mom, because she also told me, “When I was your age, I withdrew from a $4,000 Chemistry class to avoid failing it… Guess what? I’m way more successful now than I would’ve been had I stuck to a Chemistry major… Grades and scores don’t define you or measure how smart you are, or how successful you will be… But, I’m certain you’ll pass this class…”
Not only did I pass College Algebra, but I did so with an 86%, when the class average was a mere 61% (with no curve). Looking back, I didn’t even study that hard for it (no more than an hour per day, including homework. I never studied past 8:00 PM, and if I felt myself getting frustrated with something, I’d get up and go for a walk or wash the dishes before coming back to my work). Needless to say, after I got that grade back, I fully realized that I wasn’t stupid. Indeed, STEM wasn’t out of my reach after all!
With a new boost in confidence, I decided to go as far in math and science as I could, once I got all of my other prereqs outta the way (AKA, once I stopped finding excuses to procrastinate). Over the summer, I took Philosophy and Art Appreciation, then over the fall I took Psychology 101, Digital Photography, and Colorado History, almost none of which taught me anything new (aside from the occasional useless fun fact, or how to use my camera better). Nor did I particularly enjoy any of those classes, except for Philosophy. But Philosophy rarely pays the bills, and I wasn’t about to analyze history for a living either. So, that left me with a major/career in STEM.
Since I didn’t particularly enjoy any of the liberal arts classes I took, this semester (Spring 2024), I was ready to take on a course or two that previously scared the ever loving shit outta me (and still kind of do). That, of course, being PreCalculus. A beefy, five-credit PreCalculus course.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about it just yet. I’m about a week into the course already, and it’s a bit tough but not overly so (I’ve just gotta brush up on my trigonometry skills which haven’t been touched since high school). Once the basics click in my mind, I can usually figure everything else out. If I can’t… well… I’ll usually have it figured out by the time I finish taking Toby for a walk. Funny how that works.
Compare that to the first couple weeks of College Algebra, and I think I’m gonna have an easier time in PreCalc than I did in College Algebra. Will PreCalc still be challenging? Of course! I’m not a math genius in any way, shape, or form. But, challenging courses are way more fun and easier to do than boring courses. I mean… I couldn’t even get myself to watch 7+ hours of Harry Potter movies for 30% of my grade in Literature because I hated it so much. Meanwhile, if I don’t set alarms, I’ll skip lunch in order to finish my math homework.
That said, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoy math/science. But I don’t hate it either. Considering where I once was with math and science, the fact that I don’t hate math or science is a goddamned miracle! And maybe… just maybe… I’ll learn to enjoy it someday.
