Fairyland

Of the five third graders that I tutor in math, each has a different obstacle to overcome. One has difficulty with short term memory, but once a fact bumps over into his long term memory, he has it. He is also very good with abstract ideas, so it is very rewarding to see him progress. Another boy learned the shortcut of adding numbers by using his fingers, and now has to overcome that mistake in order to learn subtraction. One little girl is from Mexico so problems with learning a second language make math a challenge.
But it is the other two children who are problematic. The boy can memorize with a little effort, but then he wanders off making up rules and systems that are not coherent or in any way related to math. Last Thursday he began to tell me how the solution to a problem was an even number because adding two even numbers resulted in an even number. Great! I thought. Then his explanation wandered off into nonsense. I wouldn’t have minded that if I thought he simply misunderstood the mathematical relationships that someone had tried to explain to him, but it sounded more like he thought he could just make it up as he went along, that any explanation would do, even if it didn’t work. Long before I understood why, his teacher confused me by saying, “I worry about (boy).” Now that I have seen him walk off the path of reason, I do too.
And the other child is a little girl. From the first day I sat down with her I realized that she had some emotional problems. Maybe her parents are getting divorced. Maybe she doesn’t get enough sleep. In any case, without my constant demand that she pay attention, she stares off into space, pretending to think, but really letting her mind go blank instead. It is exactly as though she thinks that if she withdraws, the problem will go away. It is very disturbing to watch a capable child blank out.
Long ago, when magic defined the world, stories of fairies taking human children and replacing them with changelings (creatures that had no soul) put fear in peoples’ hearts. I understand that fear. Watching these two children separate from reality is alarming. Magic won’t bring them back from fairyland, but every time I work with them, I wonder if the unyielding structure of mathematics can.
Nancy Sherer