If our high school had math competitions, I don't even know about them. Math? What's that?
I got into college based solely on my English scores and my musical accomplishments. In fact, I got in in SPITE of my math scores (which CW beat by many many points when he was only in the 7th grade and took that Duke TIP SAT test. It was humiliating.)
The college accepted me providing I took remedial math over the summer, so I took some course (does it tell you something that I don't even know what kind of course it was?) at VMI. (Virginia Military Institute for non-Virginians). This was in 1966 when men were men and women were dangerous aliens barely allowed the grounds. I was the only girl in a class of zillions of young military male types. I hid in the back, terrified. The professor called me Mr. Chappell. Maybe he thought my voice hadn't changed. I got a B for unknown reasons. Or perhaps he finally looked up and was so surprised to see that I was a girl, his pen wiggled and turned a D into a B.
So I am impressed by you and anyone who does well in math and science. I;ve been thinking a lot about education these days what with the outsourcing issues, and the poor rankings of our kids on international math and science tests. CW has said that American students were nowhere nearly as well-prepared as Asian and Indian ones at Rice. In the 60s, it wasn't exactly touted loudly, but everyone knew that the brightest kids had certain teachers who really pushed them. You would think now with all our Honors and AP classes, we would have moved ahead some. So where are we failing?
ALthough I remember we all had the same biology teacher in high school and I have no idea how anyone, bright or not, made it in college biology after her. I swear, we got a grade on how many grasshoppers we collected for lab. We dissected NOTHING. Imagine my amazement when I got to college and learned that many students had dissected fetal pigs.
Whatever they were.
As for the rumors about your other high school activities, you obviously were the kind of boy I wasn't allowed to date but secretly wanted to. |
