Cartesia

MY BOSS: There’s been a restructure at leadership level and we now have a Maths class that needs a teacher. Will you do it?

ME: Thinks: I’m not Maths-trained. But I could use the extra money for the extra load. It’s short-term and I know the kids already, because I’ve got them for other subjects.

ME: Says: Sure, why not?

So began the process of reawakening latent Maths skills that I hadn’t used since year eight. (Yes kids, the teachers are wrong – you won’t necessarily use this stuff ‘all your adult life’ – at least I haven’t! So there may in fact actually ‘be no point in learning it’, as you say … but for the sake of making it through this lesson, can we please all just pretend?)

The Maths classes were in the first session of the day, so every morning over breakfast I would check the lesson plan (put up by another teacher, thankfully – I got lots of support in this role!) to work out:

1. Did I myself understand the content? Watch the tutorial videos, try the worksheets.
2. Do I know the Maths terminology? Funny thing, I realised I could do a lot of it but I didn’t recognise the terms used to describe the concepts – so either they’ve been erased from my memory or they’ve been added since I was learning it myself, as a school student.
3. What worksheets do I need to print and what resources do I need to get ready at school, before school starts? Cue them on my computer so I can press Print as I walk through the door.

The topic I entered halfway through was Cartesian planes. My instinctive reactive was, “Where’s Cartesia? Is it an ancient empire like Mesopotamia, or a fantasy world like Middle Earth? Will I find a detailed map of this land at the beginning of an epic novel? Oh wait, I’m confusing geography with geometry.

“What planes does it have? Lolling ones that undulate in gentle hills and valleys (oops, that’s plains) or ones that fly?

“What’s the point of co-ordinates in quadrants anyway?? What are they used for except as dots on a grid?”

It took musicians to explain it to me in a way that I understood, “Cartesian planes are the basis of any 3D construction. You can’t build a cupboard or a house or a guitar without mapping the co-ordinates of X, Y and Z.” Ah! Now I get it! To create anything physical, the horizontal dimensions (X-axis) need to be mapped against the vertical dimensions (Y-axis) on a flat surface, then both of these are mapped to the depth (Z-axis, upwards from the flat plane, into space – changing it from 2D to 3D). I even used that line on the students!

There’s still scope for a fantasy author to do some world-building and create a land called Cartesia, populated with Cartesians. In my opinion, anyway. (If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yes, that’s me! I’d love to write that!” share a copy of your book with me when it’s done 🙂 You can credit me with the original idea in your Acknowledgements.)

PostScript: At the end of the year the students all experienced their subjects for the next year level, for a week. I taught an extra for a teacher on leave. The students didn’t bat an eyelid when they saw me at the front of the class. It was only when I said, “Put your name on your work so I can give it to your teacher,” that they questioned me, “So you’re not our Science teacher next year?”

I can see it from their point of view: all of these students already had me for two subjects, and many had me for three … why not add another subject-quiver to my teaching-bow and teach them Science, as well?

I’ll take it as a compliment that I’m still standing at the end of a teaching day, week, year, with the students perceiving I’m competent in what I’m teaching … that’s a hard one to pull off, with adolescents!