I remember the horror of Grade Three multiplication tables.
My stepmother was going to make me do the multiplication table. You will note
that I worded this very carefully; I didn’t say “learn,’’ I said, “do.” This
from the outset was a trial of wills, or she seemed to think that it was.
The method was this. She bought a huge (at least to me)
free-standing blackboard and set it up in the spare bedroom. Stretching I could
just reach the top of the board. She laboriously filled in the whole blackboard
with the multiplication table, minus the answers of course. My job was to fill
in the answers.
She gave me the chalk, and looming angrily over me she demanded
that I fill in the answers. Two by two equals four, but six time seven was
beyond me. The emotional pressure was intense and after putting in a few of the
answers I froze. No amount of haranguing from my stepmother was going to make
me fill in the answers I had never learned.
Not only was my ignorance my failure and stupidity, it was
also her failure as a parent. She couldn’t make me do what she demanded.
To this day I still can’t remember the multiplication table.
Six times seven is…six times six is thirty-six, plus seven is forty three…as
long a nobody shouts at me I can puzzle it out…no, no, that’s not right, it’s
thirty six plus … let me get a calculator.
_________
It’s the beginning of school, and some little third graders
are going to go through similar things for a variety of reasons. When teaching
little kids it’s not really a contest of wills; it’s about understanding each other and it’s
about the art of communication; but the main responsibility rests on the adult.
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