Musings at Altitude

My 14 year old began studying for her finals more than a week ago – yep – more than a week ago.  With each passing day the anxiety built because she had that most dreaded final in math first – which is today.  She has four more the rest of this week, but none of them bring out the fear, the worry, the trepidation that math does.

She gets that from her mother, a self professed “I suck at math” evangelist.  Together they create a chorus of self fulfilling prophesies regarding math that rock the halls and shake the walls of the house as they profess their disdain and proclaim their God created inadequacies in math.

I certainly don’t see either one of them as ignorant in math.  And I’m no psychiatrist, but I do see both of them as having created great barriers of self imposed mental deficiencies that now must be overcome in order for either of them to feel any sense of accomplishment in math.  I also see both of them joining hands in a common bond of anticipated mediocrity that very well may play itself out as achieving great success just by getting through the course with a passing grade.

So on this most dreaded of all days when my 14 year old has to face the demons of math head on, I mentally practiced my got-to-pump-her-up speech as I got ready to take her to the bus stop.  I’d need a good speech today, because she had a week of build up in doubt that I had to overcome in a 5 minute visit with her at the bus stop.  I thought of all the great lines:

• “Your hard work will be rewarded.”
• “Don’t worry, you’ll do great.”
• “I can’t wait to hear how great you did when it’s over.”
• “In my darkest hours, I always pray.”

I had a few other choice lines as well, but those are best kept between a father and his 14 year old!

So I was ready.  I was going to tackle her fear head on and through my very own positive words of support, I was going to launch her towards school feeling confident about that test and feeling very positive about her hard work in preparation.

When she popped into my office just before we had to leave for the bus stop, I asked her how she was feeling and if she was worried about the test.  She quickly responded, “Avs won!”  As I tried to probe so I could use all of those magnificent lines that I’d spent all morning practicing to use on her, she ran over to my computer and said, “did you hear who the stars of the game were?”  I gave it one last chance and astutely asked, “so the Avs winning takes all the worry about the test away?”  She responded, “Yah!”  And then she jumped on my computer and went to the Avalanche web site and proceeded to show me the still photo shots from the Avs 3-2 victory over the Red Wings.

Now I’m no genius, but I realized pretty quick that she was in a state of euphoria that no longer required any pump me ups before she boarded that bus.  She had gone to bed high fiving everyone, and she woke up in an extended celebration that took her mind completely off of the test only hours away. 

My guess is she’ll do fine on that test.  She’s no dummy, and a week of preparation and hard work will pay off with a good grade. 

Fortunately, she’ll go into that test now feeling good about life even if she still feels inadequate in math. 

There’s something to that.  There’s a lesson there to be learned. 

I just hope for her sake that the Avs win every time the night before a math test!