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stealth job screening
Nov. 8th, 2023 08:58 pmI think I just got, like, a stealth job screening! I have a new student, a teenager, who is not having trouble with the concepts in her trigonometry class at school, but is shaky on the arithmetic she should have learned in elementary school. I help with class work when she asks, but we spend most of our time doing fractions, decimals, long division.
We had been working steadily for a while when she asked, "Susan, what's your favorite game?" I described griddlers, and showed her Two Dots on my phone. A little later she asked, "So how did you get into math?" I told her how the chapter on probability in my 6th grade math textbook had made me realize that I could use math to win games, and once I understood that you had to multiply fractions to calculate the probability of events A AND B, and add and subtract fractions to calculate the probability of A OR B, and convert fractions to decimals to compare two probabilities, well, that was it, I wanted ALL the math.
At the time I thought she just wanted a little break from talking about long division, but looking back, I think she was trying to find out whether I was really a Math Person. At least, if I were hiring a math tutor, those would be two very good screening questions.
We had been working steadily for a while when she asked, "Susan, what's your favorite game?" I described griddlers, and showed her Two Dots on my phone. A little later she asked, "So how did you get into math?" I told her how the chapter on probability in my 6th grade math textbook had made me realize that I could use math to win games, and once I understood that you had to multiply fractions to calculate the probability of events A AND B, and add and subtract fractions to calculate the probability of A OR B, and convert fractions to decimals to compare two probabilities, well, that was it, I wanted ALL the math.
At the time I thought she just wanted a little break from talking about long division, but looking back, I think she was trying to find out whether I was really a Math Person. At least, if I were hiring a math tutor, those would be two very good screening questions.