For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 13, 2018

as a son of a retired educator and a brother of a practicing one, I couldn’t agree more with Elly there

“the hypotenuse.” Mike stopped John just in time, which is too bad, because frankly we don’t get enough Pythagorean Theorem jokes in comic strips.

That reminds of the hangman who liked to carry his marijuana in his hip pocket. One day he found his hip pot in noose.

Kids are wet behind the ears and so their brains are waterlogged. As they get older, they dry out a bit and their brains surface—around age 25—that’s when they should start school. Saves a lot of looking out the window. In the meantime, some sort of gainful activity could be arranged.

The thing is, I don’t think Michael understands algebra and that’s where the frustration’s coming from. He just doesn’t want to admit it. This strip reminded me of when I was a high school freshman who’d never been great at math to begin with…how was adding x’s and y’s going to make it easier? I feel Mike’s pain.

Adults too. We hate to admit ignorance, so we claim to know it all in order to save face. I caught myself recently, when someone was explaining something to me, saying “I know, I know” when in fact I didn’t. Nasty habit.

I did really well in all my elementary and high school classes, except for math. I was fine with the basic add/subtract/multiply/divide stuff, but word problems, fractions, square roots, algebra, geometry, and statistics literally left me crying tears of frustration over my homework, even as a mature adult (in my early 50’s) in college. That’s when I was finally diagnosed with a math learning disorder called Dyscalculia. I’d like to have known that sooner. It explained SO MUCH. My brain changes pluses to minuses and vice versa, misses decimals, and I cannot memorize proofs and theorems to save my life. I’ve had no need for more than basic math since I earned my degree.

I’m glad Lynn used an actual math thing and didn’t just do the thing where you have the characters say something vaguely mathy.

That is so true, Elly!

John and Elly are both missing the point of Michael’s rant. Michael wasn’t really asking for help or advice with regard to solving the problem. He wanted a little sympathy and empathy for being forced to do homework in the first place.

I’m rather amazed that kids learn anything from the math books used today. I have a cousin who teaches Algebra and his text book was almost meaningless to me. i still have the math books from tech school, and they were so straight forward and easy to understand, different from these modern texts.

Get them a job and have them pay rent while they still do.

Elly the dropout sure knows about academics.

Humboldt Strong ;)

If a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long will it take two hens to lay two eggs?

To be fair, the frustration can be understandable. When I was Michael’s age I played on a sports team and in Scouting planning out my Eagle project on top of my academic responsibilities. What is Michael’s overall curricula like?

It was much easier when all you had to think about was… Could “Hulk” Hogan beat "King Kong Bundy…..

It was easier when all you had to worry about was…Could “Hulk” Hogan beat “King Kong” Bundy….

My dad used to say my Brain fell out at 15 and he didn’t expect it to grow back until I was 25. I think he was overly optimistic.