3.75

Pity my son. Imagine that he could come home with a report card full of A's and one B, and we would all still be scratching our heads about where we went wrong. My wife and I agreed, later when we were alone, that we might have expected a B in gym. He is, after all, our genetic fault. And yet, Physical Education was an A. The B came in Math. How could this be?
On this there are many competing theories. The first and most obvious one is that middle school math and math teachers are at least a notch harder than that he experienced just one short year ago. This is the stuff that eventually shows up on your PSAT. This is also the first time that he's had letter grades to negotiate. It's a bigger pond with a lot more fish. What exactly does it take to get an A? How is that different from getting the plus or the check in the box that he had spent the past six years cultivating? What if elementary math smart doesn't quite prepare you for middle school math smart?
So many questions, so little time. If I think back to my own middle school odyssey, way back when it was called "junior high," I recall that it was during this period that I began to care what other people thought about me. It might be simple enough to call it puberty, but it went deeper than simple peer pressure and pimples for me. It was the time that I actively began to determine what sort of person I was going to be. How did I fit into the complex social fabric that was Centennial Junior High School. Did I want to be popular, and even if I did, would I have the stomach to remain that way? Could I imagine spending the rest of my life with my friends from band?
With all that fretting about my place in the hierarchy of adolescence, much of my previously experienced academic excellence began to fade. I was now simply "one of the smartest." I was beginning to get a sense of what that bright light could do to a person, especially a newly formed and evolving pre-teen person. I could take being a band geek, but I drew the line at the math lab.
More's the pity, really. I really loved math. I still do, but I saw what it meant to be one of those guys. Combining math with band would all but seal my social death warrant. I made a series of decisions that, by the time I was a senior in high school, had all but ended my affection for arithmetic. It wasn't until decades later when I took a math class for my teaching credential that I put myself back in touch with the part of me that loves to balance equations. It made me think of all my possible pasts. What could have been.
And then I think of my son's report card, and I know that I will be happy to help him in any way that I can, even if it isn't math.