The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

31 - Win

Hannah

I couldn't stop the butterflies in my stomach even if I tried. I was so nervous that I wasn't sure I'll be able to say my name on the interview. But I wanted it to go well, I wanted to make a good impression, not only because I wanted the job, but because Dan arranged it, and I didn't want to make him regret it. Seeing Cleo's confused but supporting message made me relax for a second. You can do it. You know your worth, you know the school will only gain if they hire you, you have nothing to lose... My little pep talk on the way to the school was doing nothing about my nerves.

"How can I help you?" I was staying at the entrance of the Ollivance High doing my best to look less suspicious to the security.

"Um, hello. My name is Hannah Adams. I'm here for an interview with..."

"Mr. Pender is waiting for you. At the end of the hall, turn right, then left and you'll see his door." And with that, I was left to wander the school's halls in search of the headmasters' door. Luckily, it was where the security guard told me, and I was knocking before I second guess myself.

"Come in." I opened the door and was met with an explosion of shapes and colors. All the walls were covered with colorful art that was obviously made by some of the students. There were different shapes and themes, and even though it was more than I expected as a décor, especially from the headmaster's room, it looked good. It had its charm and warmth. "I can see you are as surprised with the walls as everyone else coming here." I snapped my eyes to the man behind the voice, my cheeks were getting warm with embarrassment from staring at the walls.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"Don't worry. I love seeing the shock on people's faces when they come here for the first time. That was the idea of all this. I didn't want my office to be a sterile room in the school, I wanted it to be not only a part of it, but I wanted it to represent it in some way. That's why we made the students choose what to have on the walls...as you can see the different ages had different visions, but that was the goal. It is quite colorful, just like our students." That sounded like an amazing project for the kids. I can't imagine how enthusiastic they were to draw on the walls in the office.

"I'm sure it was really fun for the kids."

"Oh yes, they had quite the time here. Some more than the others, as you can see from the abstract lines over there." He pointed at a wall that was full of colorful lines and dots in no specific form or order. It was really an abstract piece of art, but somehow, all the colors matched each other perfectly.

"Luckily, our art teacher was here and responsible for the paints and colors, so that they looked good with each other. If we had left all of it to the kids, I'm sure it was going to be a total mess."

"Oh, I have no doubt about it."

"Please, take a seat." For a second, I had forgotten the reason I was here, but now, the nervousness came back with full force.

"Thanks."

"I looked over your CV, miss Adams, and I must say that on paper you look like someone who knows really well your sphere. The Math, I mean. With all the courses you had taken in and out of university. It really shows that you like the subject very much. The question is, do you think you'll be able to share that knowledge with the students? Because it's one thing to know your things and quite the other to teach it."

"Yes, I absolutely agree with you, Mr. Pender. The two things are very different, but I think that I have the needed knowledge to make the subject interesting and at the same time understandable by the students. Everybody knows that the math is hard, and barely anybody understands it, especially when the alphabet is included. It's not an easy subject, but I think once understood, the children will be very thrilled to be in my class and deal with the equations and the geometry."

"You really think that you can manage to make the kids love the math? To be enthusiastic to learn it? I must say this sounds like mission impossible."

"Oh, I know how it sounds. And I know it won't be something that'll happen from one day to the other. But I really have the vision that every kid could fall in love with the numbers if they manage to understand them. And every kid has a different way of thinking, so my job is to find the best approach to each one of them and conquer this tough task."

"You know that you'll have 20 or more kids in the room, right. You can't deal with each one separately."

"Well, I think this is one of the problems and the reasons why more and more of the children quickly gave up on the math. Because every mind works differently. One of my favorite ways of showing it is by asking people to explain how they solve simple equation like 17 + 18. How do you solve it, Mr. Pender?"

"Well, I took 3 from the 8 to round the 17 to 20. Then I'm left with 15 from the 18. I add this to the 20 and end up with 35."

"Good. My mind makes it a little bit different. Every time I see any form of 7 + 8, my mind directly knows it's 15. It's just a fact, I don't break the numbers in any way, I just know this. So, with that, I know that my number will be ending on a 5. Then I add the 1 from the 17 to the 1 of the 18, to get 2, to which I add the 1 from the 15 to end with 35."

"Hmm, interesting." I could see my little experiment really made him think about my previous words.

"Yes, it's really interesting. And I've met people who firstly add the 1s and then deal with the second numbers, I know of people who do it similar to your method, but round the 18 to 20 instead of the 17. The end result may be all the same, but the path to that result could be quite different. And right now, we are talking about the addition of two somehow simple numbers. Can you image what's happening in people's minds when the numbers get bigger or we and more and more... or we include the letters? It's getting really messed up, and if you don't know how to deal with this kind of problem, you easily stop even trying."

"And you know how to deal with this kind of problem, miss Adams?"

"Well, my goal as a teacher won't be to make the students think like me because this is the wrong method of teaching. I want to make them reach the final result in whichever way they feel comfortable with. That is the reason I need to understand their way of thinking first so that I'll be able to show them the best path to reach the end goal."

"And you think you can understand how everyone thinks?"

"Well, I can't say that. But children's minds are somehow similar, so it's not an impossible task. I can't guarantee that my method will be 100% successful, but right now, the way we are teaching math to the young children...it's not efficient, and the only sure thing at the end is that almost everyone will hate math at the end of the year. I want to change that. Because we are surrounded by math, and it's a beautiful and intriguing subject, and you can achieve unbelievable things once you give it a try." I knew I was rambling nonsenses, but this topic was very important to me, and once I started talking, it was hard to stop. Silence surrounded us, I could almost see the thoughts in his head running around, trying to make some kind of sense of my words.

"I must say, miss Adams. The way you see your subject is quite different from what I'm used to. Can't say I've thought of how I do math in my head and that someone could do it in a different way. It honestly never crossed my mind. Which is another reason I think you could be really good for our students. Welcome to Ollivance High." I fucking did it!   

***So, how do you do math in your head?