Disaffection with maths is not encoded in the genes; it sets in gradually throughout schooling. Very early for some, who stall in the early years, a little later for others (middle school or entry to high school). As for me, in sixth and seventh grade, things were spiced up with a little modern math, which, quite honestly, was the cherry on the cake (where G is the set of cakes and C is the set of cherries)... The trick that makes you think you understand, until the day when the rug is pulled out under your feet: Then you realize that, actually, you haven't understood anything at all! Thanks, guys! That's modern!
Grade 2
Thanks to my reading skills, acquired in kindergarten, and my good performance in arithmetic and numbers (“excellence prize” for the boy), I skipped first grade and went straight into second. In kindergarten, I had to deal with two old-fashioned teachers who were tough but efficient and, in a way, deserving of respect (I said respect, not affection). In second grade, I'm going to find out that a teacher can be a bit lame and unfair (and a bit narrow-minded too). It didn't matter: I liked school and that didn't stop me from regularly ending up in the top ten, I liked everyone except... my teacher. At that point, it didn't cause me much trouble and, as far as arithmetic was concerned, everything went well: addition, subtraction, mental calculation, solving problems went well too.
Grade 3
A 180° change, the teacher that year was great, young, classy and so on. I even had the pleasure of being top of the class in the middle of the year, so everything was going really well! Except that... my grammar is a bit shaky when it comes to object complements. Circumstantial, I understand, are circumstances: time, place, way, that's fine. Object? I think I understand: Someone throws the ball, okay he throws an object, the ball. The cat eats the mouse, now I'm starting to get a bit confused: a mouse is an animal, not an object! I learned that as a child. So why can the mouse be an object complement? I don't get it. And when I ask questions, Superteacher tells me that yes, the mouse is the object (implied by the cat's action). As I like him, I understand that we don't understand each other and I leave him alone without having had an answer that redirects me correctly. These are the warning signs of difficulties to come, but... it's still okay.
Unlike geometry... I can't draw anything neat. Ever since the first day I picked up a pencil, there's always been a finger to deviate from the line, even though it started well. So you have to erase and, of course, the HB pencil is already an old memory... And you go ahead and erase the messy line of a 2B, so greasy that it leaves marks even when you sweep up the eraser debris to clean up your page which, of course, you've crumpled... By erasing! You use half the remaining eraser on your table to rid it of the graphite it has accumulated, and when you come back to your diagram :
a) you make a hole in the page or...
b) ...the penholder, which you don't even use, rolls over it releasing a drop of ink along the way, a nice splash on your geometric figure.
And by the time you've finished drawing that stupid, fucking, son-of-a-bitch diagram, everyone's put their notebooks away, the board's been erased and you've missed all the explanations. And even when your neighbor, a little worried at the sight of your notebook, passes you his impeccable one to copy the accompanying sentences, you don't really know what it's all about. Partly because you've missed the teacher's explanations, partly because your diagram is so disgustingly wrong that it confuses the whole point.
During my 2nd grade year, September '67 → June '68, my mother was concierge in the middle of the Quartier Latin. I lived there and went to school, at least when the tear gas wasn't saturating the air. I remember very well, at the start of the events, one morning when my mother and I arrived in front of the school in rue Victor Cousin, our eyes and noses stinging and dripping, only to be told that the school was closed until further notice. But that's another story... a much funnier one...
Grades 4/5/6
CLEAR. Arithmetic's okay... Geometry? Not good either ;-). Math problems? I get by, even if I'm glad my mother can't afford a bathtub at our place, because that sounds like a complicated thing to deal with. Less than a train going from A to B, but still. Although, if trains had to go from A to B in my geometry notebook...
