My Teacher


As I was painstakingly lying on my living room floor trying to do crunchers (lazy sit ups), my daughter was hovering above me, holding papers over my head (as if I could read them). She was right above my face, loudly talking at me about tenths and hundredths place values and other stuff that was on her math homework. Ugh.
Let me clarify, she wasn’t asking me for help with her homework; she was already done with her homework. Now she was trying to teach me. She recreated her worksheets and was trying to teach her dumb old mom how to write one hundred twenty-five in “standard form.”
So there we are…my abs are burning, I’m out of breath, and I’m trying desperately not to laugh at her long explanations as she tries to “teach” me concepts she has barely begun to learn herself. My ears are ringing as I try to tune out the safari animal sounds on the baby toy which are going full speed and the stupid cartoons on TV which are turned up loud enough for my neighbors to hear. My daughter thinks I’m half deaf I guess, so instead of turning down the TV, she just screams every word of her lesson above it all.
Finally, I’m like “Do you think we can do this in like 5 minutes? I’m kind of in the middle of something right now!”
My daughter starkly replies, “Fine, well, I’m just trying to help you because you might have a test on this later. I’m probably going to give you a test.”
Oh Teacher, Teacher! All weekend she continued with her lesson, teaching me “standard form, expanded form, and all about place value units.”
When school started, my daughter went to school, but somehow I became the pupil of the student. Anytime I sit down at the dinner table she jumps up, pouncing on the opportunity to teach me something new. “Okay….now today I’m going to teach you about……blah blah blah.”
Her lessons have such long explanations because she’s trying to learn and understand the math while simultaneously learning me of it, so it’s hard not to “interrupt.” Hence, she’s also tried employing the teacher’s discipline tactics on me, clapping three times, which means it’s time for the class (aka me) to quiet down.
I have a feeling that by the time this school year is over, I’ll be smart as a 3rd grader! I don’t even want to know what 4th grade math is going to be like!