Shortly before school reopened, recent recruits to our faculty attended several orientation sessions. These included ‘demos’, at which senior teachers show the newcomers how to make their classes interactive and interesting. Among the instructors was Anu, who embarked on an explanation of angles.
When she spoke about the one called obtuse, it struck me that the term for that figure could apply to me. I have always been slow to grasp anything remotely related to mathematics.
Maths (not math) is what we called that subject in my student days, and it encompassed the terrible trio: arithmetic, algebra and geometry. There must have been a method in their madness, but it eluded me! Trains raced up and down, with deplorable disregard for safety, and we had to calculate exactly when they would cross each other. What did it matter? They could collide for all I cared!
As for ‘area’ and ‘volume’, the mere mention of those today has the power to transport me back in time. I see, as clearly as if the blackboard is right before me, diagrams of rectangular rugs and gravel paths, and cylindrical cisterns being emptied and filled.
I recall those images vividly because my maths teacher’s drawings were amazingly accurate. Mrs Nafde could have pursued a career in art, but there was no question of her deviating from her chosen profession; indeed, it was a vocation!
Her mission in life was to impart her love of maths to her students. My good friend Nilima responded with a fervour that warmed Mrs Nafde’s heart, but I reserved such enthusiasm for English.
‘Never the twain shall meet,’ declares Rudyard Kipling, describing the divergence of East and West.
That was not the case with Maths and English. Common to both was an ancient Greek philosopher. Pythagoras, who has a theorem named after him, was referred to in the play prescribed for study.
While I did not find As You Like It particularly pleasing, wending my way through Shakespeare’s tangled tale was infinitely preferable to struggling with problems.
Problems! How apt the word! Of course, Mrs Nafde would not have agreed. Last week, as Anu explored angles from every angle, her eyes shone with the zeal of my former teacher. After over five decades, I wonder if I can learn something from my young colleague and make amends for my mathematical misadventures.