The Poeticism of Basic Algebra
I work for an urban university program that provides support for freshmen to help them transition to the academic rigors of college. The vast majority of our students are considered "developmental," a label that has largely replaced the pejorative "remedial" that dominated the discourse of underperforming students for nearly a century.
Our staff is very small, and only two of us – the math specialist and writing specialist; you can guess which I am – work hands-on with students on a daily basis. Small, too, is our workspace: four offices line the outer walls of a makeshift classroom whose dimensions could barely accommodate a standard conference table. For many hours a day, I sit in one of those four offices, door slightly ajar, as to suggest to students that, yes, you can come in, while my math counterpart works through dozens of problems on the room's sole whiteboard.
Last semester, I largely ignored the polynomial equations and conversions going on just a few feet beyond my door. I'd drown it out by putting on headphones or getting lost in a book, or, when duty called, working with students struggling with rhetorical analysis or formatting their bibliographies. I was content keeping my job's linguistic concerns separate from the numerical. You do your thing, I'll do mine, then we'll all go home: that's more-or-less the professional paradigm by which I've always operated (to any potential employers who may be reading, please know that I am, in fact, an excellent collaborator and communicator, despite what my ambivalent online persona might suggest).
One day I left my headphones on the nightstand, and I finished my book within the first few hours of the workday. I had little choice other than to turn an ear toward the confused tones of students, the pounding of the Expo marker, the hurried explanations. At first, I experienced a bunch of mostly empty recall: oh yeah, I kinda remember parabolas; what's a vertex again?; integral...isn't that like an exponent but different, somehow? But then I stopped trying to understand. I removed myself from the problem-solving and just listened.
I'd hear certain phrases over and over again: "what do we know about 'x'?"; "just factor the denominator!"; if that's true, what else must be true?" along with excited encouragements ("yes, yes, keep going!") and, sometimes, moments of genuine inquisition from the teacher ("oh, interesting...how'd you get there?"). These, along with the more procedural stuff – this to the power of that, x in terms of y, all over 2a, etc. – make for a truly comprehensive listen. There are wide jumps, large strides, little steps. Math's got variety.
In many ways, it's like following along to a narrative, with conflict, resolution, rising and falling action. The variables, expressions, and conjugations serve as literary devices. However, more often than not, the plot – the math itself, in this analogy – is lost on me. I'm barely capable of simple arithmetic anymore, let alone algebraic proofs and trigonometry. It reminds me of reading a difficult author, like Joyce or Faulkner, or, perhaps more aptly, lyrical poetry: even if I don't know what the hell is going on, it's pretty; it sounds and feels nice. There seems to be intention behind the pacing, movement, and emotion, even while a student is stumbling through a difficult set of equations.
I think we could all take a page from the mathematical approach of taking inventory of the things you do know to figure out those that you don't. As I write this, math is going on just outside my door. When I pause for a beat, I hear a student say, "this is looking a little funky, not gonna lie." In response: "Math is making something funky look less funky." I like that.