MATHEMATICAL THOUGHTS BY POOH

Math has never been easy for me. When I was struggling with college-level algebra or geometry, my brother Michael (in middle school at the time) would sit down with me and try to break down the problems for me into simple terms.

"It's really very easy," he'd say as if he were six years older than me rather than six years younger. "All you have to do is..." He'd then proceed to scrawl out equations and formulas across the paper, explaining as he went. Though I tried to follow along, I was usually still helplessly lost at the end of it, though I hated to admit that to my patient younger brother.

Being the kind and considerate people that they are, certain members of my family like to make jokes about my lack of math skills. For a birthday a few years ago, I received addition and subtraction flashcards. And somehow clipped comics from the newspaper show up on my door - such as the one about needing to answer a word problem to get into heaven ("If two trains leave Boston at 10:00 and one is going 50 miles per hour and one is going 75 miles per hour..."). Then there was the little sign that was taped to my bedroom door by one of my siblings - "No Math Needed." I actually thought that one was quite appropriate.

So when I was re-reading recently one of my favorite volumes of classic children's literature - The House At Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne, I decided that this is one more thing Pooh bear and I have in common. In addition to a love of eating and a fondness for rambling walks in the woods, we both have a distinct lack of mathematical inclination. But one of the great things about Pooh is that he doesn't seem to be bothered by this in the least. He's not the kind of bear to lose any sleep over things like multiplication facts.

One sunny afternoon, Pooh is playing his newly invented game of "Pooh-sticks" - which consists of dropping sticks into the river on one side of the bridge and running over to the other side of the bridge to see which stick comes out first. Pooh had been playing against himself for quite awhile, dropping in two sticks of different lengths and guessing which would win. And he was quite pleased with himself.

"...And when he went home for tea," the book says, "he had won thirty-six and lost twenty-eight, which meant that he was - that he had - well, you take twenty-eight from thirty-six, and that's what he was. Instead of the other way round."

And that's all the math a bear like Pooh needs to know.

FEELING IMPORTANT

If I had to be one of the characters in A.A. Milne's The House At Pooh Corner, I think I might have to be Rabbit. He's not necessarily my favorite character, but I must say I feel a connection with him.

Rabbit certainly does not struggle with low confidence. He is an animal that is full of the idea of his own importance, and convinced that the world needs him desperately. Like Rabbit, I rather enjoy giving orders and being the center of attention, especially if it's admiring attention by people who assure me that they can't possibly carry on without me! Today it struck me that maybe, just maybe one of the reasons I decided to become an elementary school teacher was so that I could have a roomful of little people who HAD to listen to me and do what I say!

Here's a taste of classic Rabbit from The House At Pooh Corner.

It was going to be one of Rabbit's busy days. As soon as he woke up he felt important, as if everything depended upon him. It was just the day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a Notice Signed Rabbit, or for Seeing What Everybody Else Thought About It. It was a perfect morning for hurrying round to Pooh, and saying, "Very well, then, I'll tell Piglet," and then going to Piglet, and saying, "Pooh thinks - but perhaps I'd better see Owl first." It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said, "Yes, Rabbit" and "No, Rabbit," and waited until he had told them.

"After all," said Rabbit to himself, "Christopher Robin depends on Me. He's fond of Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore, and so am I, but they haven't any Brain. Not to notice. And he respects Owl, because you can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count. And Kanga is too busy looking after Roo, and Roo is too young and Tigger is too bouncy to be any help, so there's really nobody but Me, when you come to look at it. I'll go and see if there's anything he wants doing, and then I'll do it for him. It's just the day for doing things."

I've had days when I felt like that. Have you?