Middle Grandson is taking college calculus this year. From home. He studied and studied and studied and studied and then he studied some more. Then he took the test.

When he came to the kitchen for his next meal, he was pretty wrung out. His mother apologized for not having put enough seasoning in whatever the main dish was.

With an air of utter gloom, he intoned:

Tastes like life: dull, bland, and hopeless.

This post is part of Linda G. Hills weekly blog hop, One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner or just like them, follow the link.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about spice.

One thought on “Life After Test #1LinerWeds”

RAAckerman@Cerebrations.biz

December 23, 2020 at 11:35am

Get your grandson to take a hike and wake up to the wonders of the world- despite the pandemic!

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Calculus isn’t ‘fun’ to learn, especially not how it was taught in my math classes in prep and at the National Autonomous University of Mexico at the School of Physics from a TA based on class notes ONLY (there was no textbook!), but it is one of the most amazing parts of math once you figure out how and why to use it. I wish him well with his mathematics future.

I hope there are better methods now. All the steps used to teach it must appeal to some minds – and they design the curricula – but I’d find something interactive to play with, and maybe some Youtube videos on making it more visual. Surely the methods must have improved to get it into your brain.

For the record, I remember doing a Skype call with our youngest daughter from Cancun at least twice to help her learn it at RPI while we were on vacation (on of the way too few times).

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Author

Marian Allen
December 23, 2020 at 2:41pm

Middle Grandson is a sophomore in college. His mother says he’s doing well in calc, he just wore himself out studying. His interest is physics, but he has to learn calculus first.

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- Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt
  December 23, 2020 at 6:33pm
  
  Calculus makes modern physics possible.
  
  The nice thing about calculus and differential equations is that they allow you to solve many cases in a world where problems are usually too complex to be ‘solved’ except by high-speed computers.
  
  And they give you a ‘feel’ for the answers that helps think about the problems.
  
  I still frame the answers to many of my questions about the world (such as how much heat is our outdoor pool losing to the atmosphere when they don’t remember to cover it). Heat=cost to the residents. Other cost, having someone on staff put the cover on.
  
  But the mathematical thinking doesn’t go away.
  
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    Marian Allen
    December 24, 2020 at 8:42am
    
    I’ll have to read up on calculus. #4 Daughter used to have a friend who was into mathematical theory, and the little he could help me to understand was beautiful.
    
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