Coffee and Geometry

One of the Dunkin’ Donuts in town is right across from the high school and has turned out to be a good place to tutor.  When I am working for the school system, I use the designated tutoring site, which is a school-owned building.  When I tutor privately, I might use the library or some other public spot like the Dunkin.

Yesterday I met with a sweet teenage girl, whom I tutored all last school year in common core algebra.  She has just begun geometry.  I am pleased that this year, they have actually given the students textbooks, and the books seem to have the materials organized in a logical fashion….NOT TRUE last year.

In any event, I met with her from 5:15 to 6:15, a time when that Dunkin is very quiet.  The only other people who were there most of the hour were a middle-aged woman seated across from a young adult man.  I was focused on my student’s geometry homework, so I didn’t hear much of their conversation.  My general impression was that the relationship was professional, and that the woman was managerial.  I wasn’t sure whether she was interviewing the young man for a position, or whether she was above him in the hierarchy and was mentoring or advising him.  I thought she may have been a local or regional Dunkin manager.

Whatever, the nature of their meeting, they finished up before we did.  He left first.  As she passed us, she stopped.  She asked my student if she was working on her homework, and then asked what the subject was.  When my student said it was geometry, the lady turned to me and said, “And how do you happen to know geometry?”  She said this in a very pleasant fashion.  I wanted to respond in kind, but what followed were several seconds of silence, as I tried to come up with an answer that was truthful and didn’t sound arrogant.

*I majored in math in college….that would be a logical explanation, but it’s not true.

*I am a retired math teacher…..another logical answer, but not true.

*I am a tutor…..true, but not an explanation.  Most tutors won’t touch high school math and science.

*I am a math genius….not true and also arrogant.

*Don’t all 70 year old grandmothers know geometry?....just plain silly.

What came out of my mouth after the lengthy pause was, “I’m a whiz-bang in math and home-schooling my son gave me a chance to review.”  True….but a tad on the arrogant side.  It was just the best I could do under pressure.

So how do I happen to know geometry, a subject I studied 56 years ago when I was 14?

*Isn’t it like riding a bicycle?  Once you learn how, it comes back quickly.

*Math feels good inside my head.  When I work on math problems, I actually have a physically pleasurable sensation in my brain.

*I have a life-long love affair with math! 

Well now…doesn’t all of that make me sound like an oddball?  I hadn’t really thought about the fact that seeing a granny tutoring a teenager in math in the middle of a Dunkin Donut might seem strange.

At least, I got a coffee while I was there.  When it comes to coffee, it is my considered opinion that the only place that might tie with Dunkin is Tim Horton.  I prefer both over Starbucks.

Also, if C is the midpoint of line AB, then line segment AC equals line segment CB.  If AC = 3y and AB =42, you can easily determine y=7.

And that’s the truth from Ruth