Today I watched the tail end of a math class and I was struck by one strange thing. This may not seem strange on the surface–certainly no stranger than actively and purposefully watching a math class when you’re not a student in that class. But it was strange, because it went against every fiber of my being.
This teacher was talking about the numbers and the formulas. She spoke about the math as if it existed in a vacuum disconnected from anything beyond the need to solve the equation. It bothered the hell out of me. It took me a moment to understand why it bothered me.
There was no context.
I teach English and creative writing. I cannot imagine a class in which I do nothing but explain how a comma is used vs a period or any other stroke of punctuation. Punctuation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in a context. In fact, it helps to create context. Remember these oldies but goodies:
Let’s eat, Grandma!
Lets eat Grandma!
Yeah, the second has me remembering the Walking Dead too. That is because there is a context there. What I saw in that classroom utterly lacked content and as a result was both foreign and disturbing–like watching someone eat dog. I suppose, like dog, it makes more sense on the other side of the equation. It makes more sense, I suppose, in the culture of mathematicians to see things that way. However, community college professors are not teaching to 500 and 600 level mathematicians. I would argue that even at that level the equation has context and meaning outside of the nuts and bolts of the math. An engine is more than just pistons plus oil. You need to understand why and what you are trying to achieve.
That brings me back to writing. I’m writing a piece at the moment that involves a retelling of a certain history. This is all well and good, but to what purpose am I sharing this history? Why am I giving facts? There has to be a context. Today, as I write, I will realize my context. I will not eat grandma, and I will go forward with the notion that why absolutely matters.