The Math Whiz

Shane comes home today and tells me that he had an algebra problem today and he was the first in the class to finish it. He said he got it right and his teacher took it and put it in his portfolio.

(He also said that he is having a contest with another boy in the class to see who can finish their work first. He said that he told the boy that he finished first and the boy replied that he finished five minutes ago but was just waiting to turn in his paper. I wonder where he gets his competitiveness from. Hum....)

But that's another post all together and I'm sorry for the post derail.

Anyway, do I need to remind you that he's in 3rd grade?

Maybe this a good time to relive my experience with Algebra. Well, I remember taking Algebra in the 9th grade and struggling with it something awful. Shocking, I know. I remember meeting with my friend Brian, who was also super smart, in the library and he had to tutor me in how to figure out what the value was of a if a+3=5.

I'm not kidding.

Maybe instead of switching places with Susan in Algebra to fool the teacher, I should have been actually going to my class instead of her class. :o)

For the record, I now know that the value of a is 2. I hope.

When Shane was in 2nd grade, they were working on geometry. He came home telling me about it and said (and I quote verbatim) "but you wouldn't know how to do geometry mom, because you did it in high school."

Well, son, you're right on both points.

Anyway, I guess that it's a good thing that Shane is good at math. Because he sure isn't getting any help from me. If I struggle with kindergarten math, I'm in real trouble with Shane's work!

And, he's only 8.