Last week I got into a dispute with one of my closest friends. I will let my philosopher-friends determine whether the nature of the dispute itself was philosophical, as that is not my area of expertise.
The question is, when you want to relearn old knowledge in order to go forward, how far back should you go? My plan is to regress to the point where I’m the least bit shaky on my knowledge and begin again from there – even if it means reviewing some areas with which I’m already familiar. My friend feels that this is going back further than necessary.
In the context of this dispute, the area of knowledge is mathematics. And to establish the parameters a bit more, my ultimate goal is to replace an F on my UW-Whitewater transcript with a much more respectable grade. To do this, I will have to be a registered student taking the class — Calculus I — for a letter grade. Auditing doesn’t count; life experience (ha!) doesn’t count.
How did I get this F?
Let’s back up a bit to my UWW enrollment ten years ago, as a returning adult student pursuing a second BA in Physics when my first degree was in Creative Writing and English Literature. To do physics, one must first do math. And to do math when one hasn’t done math since the fall of 1985, one backs up a bit. In my case, I backed up to the algebra I had been doing in 1981 or 1983. I didn’t by any stretch of the imagination have the same brain I had in 1981 or 1983, or even the fall of 1985, but I worked hard under subpar circumstances and earned an A in the course. In the next course, precalculus, I also earned an A. Then I enrolled in Calculus I in Fall 2012. I was doing well in the course, and despite some struggles when it came to problems involving problems with dual changes in motion (curse you, ladder sliding down a wall!) I had a B average until the part of the semester in which I filed for divorce, moved myself and my children out of state, and was subsequently taken to court for child endangerment. I was literally opening my calculus textbook to study when the doorbell rang and I received a summons. So calculus took a back seat to everything else, and I didn’t finish the last month of the course. My “B” changed into an “I” for Incomplete, and when I didn’t finish the rest of the course requirements, that “I” converted to an “F.” And there it stays, since I did not continue my studies and I have not re-enrolled.
Why does it matter?
I no longer have fantasies of becoming a physicist, but the F still bugs me. I am better than that F. I do understand calculus better than that. That grade doesn’t represent me. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of work to erase it.
I do have a plan. (I love having a plan.) In this case, the plan involves going back as far as I think I need to go via Khan Academy to refresh my skills, then taking a UW Extended Campus class in calculus, which will give me six months to do the work instead of just one traditional semester, and then applying the credit to my record to replace the previous grade in the equivalent course. If the credit will not transfer, then I’ll have to enroll on my campus to repeat the course.
Where’s the dispute?
In the Khan Academy classes, I’m going back to pre-algebra concepts like negative numbers, which I learned tried to understand in third or fourth grade and again in middle school. My friend thinks I shouldn’t go back so far, and feels that I am opening the door to getting sidetracked by concepts I don’t need to master. And they have a point. My method is going to take more time and allow for much more possibility of distraction. The longer my path is, the more likely it is that I’m going to allow myself to stray from it. After all, none of this work is truly necessary. I can do my job without passing Calc I. I can be an effective parent without passing Calc I. I can be a good person without ever doing calculus in the rest of my life. But they also think that I can do calculus without starting from basic algebra.
The fact remains that I want to pass Calc I, and I feel that I can’t do that by coming out of nowhere — it’s now been nine years since I worked high-level math on a daily basis. I think that I need a good running start, a firm foundation, and I don’t want to just pass a final exam — I want to truly understand the mathematical work that I’m doing.
The Khan Academy classes are teaching me math in the ways I wish I had learned it back in the day — at a deep intuitive level, where I understand the concepts and I’m not just cranking through formulas without understanding what I’m doing. That’s interesting to me, too, as I am also working on some writing about practical mathematicians who strove to adequately educate future teachers of mathematics.
Who is right?
To go forward, do you stand on the highest peak you’ve ascended, recognizing that you may not remember all the steps that led you there? Or do you rappel downwards to where you can get a foothold, where you can retrace your steps? How do you know when — and how — it’s best for you to go forward?
Does forward progress depend more on your personal motivation or on your network of support? And how supportive is your network if they don’t agree with your plan of learning? If you achieve a goal, does it matter how (or why) you achieved it?
Is one of us right? Is one of us wrong? Do my goals have any meaning? Does it matter?
Another round
After we spent more time gently noting our differences of opinion on the topic, I received an email that began:
The struggles
to figure out the path
are part of the path.
And suddenly we were in a Zen moment where each of us could see the other’s perspective and allow for it. I confessed some fears and anxieties, and I received assurances in return.
Then I admitted that I had taken a Khan Academy assessment the previous night that allowed me to skip over the topics with which I was still familiar. So now I’m starting further back than my friend feels is necessary, but I’m making forward progress at a sustainable pace. It feels like a good compromise.
Knitwise, I still haven’t been knitting. But I did visit the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival this morning to meet up with a friend. I wore a t-shirt with Daleks on it, plus the first Doctor Who scarf I ever knitted. (If you have never been to a fiber festival you might not realize how appropriate this outfit was.) I got several compliments on the scarf, and one sharp-eyed yarn store owner called out the yarn manufacturer of all the yarn in the scarf. First time anyone’s done that, and I was impressed!
It’s hard to go yarn shopping when you don’t knit and you have plenty of yarn already. I saw a lot of fantastic yarn, but every skein I picked up I put back down again. Eventually it came to me that I won’t get any joy out of starting a new project until I complete a couple of old, unfinished projects. I wonder if I have any of those?
Chocolate Sheep 