Geometry Flashback

I looked my my son's super-sized geometry text book, and I had a flash back. I was transported to tenth grade sitting in my wooden desk listening to Mr. Luscombe talk about angles and lines and shapes and degrees and blah and blah blah. In my tiny school the geometry class consisted of nine people, all of whom were staring blankly at him. This routine of him talking and drawing and us staring blankly went on for a couple weeks. Then, one day something changed. I don't know what caused this miraculous change. Maybe I took my vitamins that morning, or maybe Mr. Luscombe mind melded with me and I obtained all his knowledge. But, I suddenly understood everything he said. In an instant, geometry transformed from a muddy puddle of goo in my mind to a neatly structured phenomenon.

I started working on my homework right there in class and flew through the problems as if they had not baffled me for all of my life. A kid next to me asked Mr. Luscombe a question and I spoke up and answered it. Every blank face in the room looked in my direction. So I continued explaining. I took liberties and explained problem after problem to my peers. Finally, Mr. Luscombe, with a look of pure amazement on his face, asked me to come to the front of the room and explain to the class on the overhead all that I was talking about. I drew shapes on the overhead. I labeled. I measured. I did geometry.

Mr. Luscombe smiled the smile of a proud teacher who had finally broken through to the most lost case.

The next day I confidently entered geometry class and listened in anticipation as Mr. Luscombe reviewed our lesson from the prior day. I didn't understand anything that man was saying. Nothing. I rose my hand and asked a question. He explained in Swahili or something because I did not understand a word he said. With a confused look, he told me he was just going over the exact thing I had explained to my class the day before. He told me I understood. But I didn't. The knowledge was gone.

Maybe I forgot to take my morning vitamins. Maybe Mr. Luscombe broke the mind meld. But after that day I was never a math genius again.

I'm glad I'm not in tenth grade anymore. So is Mr. Luscombe.