Remember The Bill Cosby Show? No, not the one from the 80's--I'm talking about the Bill Cosby Show that ran from 1969 to 1971. In it he played a gym teacher. There was an episode of the show where Cosby was assigned to be a sub for the algebra teacher and tries to find the answer to one of the problems without having to admit he doesn't know algebra.
I was in 6th grade and so intrigued by the episode, I asked my father to teach me algebra. He taught me linear equations, which I enjoyed so much I showed it to other kids in class and would pass linear equations around during class (yes, I was that kind of a kid).
Unfortunately, the teacher caught me passing these notes--unfortunate, not because I got into trouble, but because she was so impressed that she talked my father into teaching me...Probability. Probability? Factorials and all that stuff--yuch! I was so bored by it that I got turned off to math until analytic geometry in High School.
Pity. My 6th grade teacher was an interesting person. She had only 2 fingers on her right hand--her thumb and pinky--yet was somehow able to hold a piece of chalk in that hand and write notes on the board. I never was able to figure out how she was able to do that.
One thing she did do for me was make me proud of my hebrew. I went to an afternoon Talmud Torah twice a week and on Sunday. One of the most boring things about it was learning hebrew--each year learning how to conjugate the same words in the same tenses in binyan kal (katavti, katavta, katavt...). Every year the same thing.
But one day in class--I forget the exact context--she commented that Hebrew was one of the 'classical languages.' Suddenly, for the first time, learning Hebrew was cool. I learned to appreciate it for other reasons, but if it wasn't for my 6th grade teacher, I would not have gained that appreciation for Hebrew, in all probablility.
Technorati Tag: Hebrew and Algebra and Bill Cosby.
Chet Kincaid.
ReplyDeleteYup, that was his character's name. Did you ever see that show?
ReplyDeleteYes. Though the only episode I remember had him and another guy trapped with a pregnant woman about to give birth. In the end the two men get baby gifts and each boasts to the other the wonderful quality of his own gift.
ReplyDeleteOr something like that.