We have always known that Skip was a Math Nerd. Heavy on the math. Heavy on the nerd. He learned calculus the summer before 4th grade. Yeah, that kind of math nerd.
Somewhere along the line, someone fed him the 'you can't be good at everything' line (it could have been the voices in his head, who knows?) and as a result, he always felt he was weak in the language arts. Oh, if there was a 'right or wrong' answer, he could figure it out perfectly, but for so much of 'advanced literature and composition', the teaching didn't seem to be about the writing or reading, but about the 'how well can you 'interpret and perform' to show your understanding of the concepts.' And that, starting in about 5th grade, sent Skip into a little 'I can't write' tailspin. Creativity? Look somewhere else. Please just give me the super-hard, can't-be-solved math problems, and have someone else write eight different poems about pie, or do interpretive dances about the relationship between two of the characters in Lord of the Flies (both assignments in his ill-fated year of 'advanced English').
I will admit that I bowed to parental peer pressure when he was in high school, and pushed him to try to get into the AP English stream. I may have said something like "statistically, people who do NOT take AP English are much more likely to work at McDonalds as a career than people who take AP English". In retrospect? Not my finest hour. So he tried to test into AP English, and was denied.
SO he stuck with, as he calls it, "n00b English". And he did adequately, and got reasonable grades. And never had such a horrible homework load that he had to pull all-nighters. Thinking back, I don't know that he actually ever did homework in high school...
Oh well.
So he ends up at fancy-pants college. And it's Course Selection Morning during Orientation Weekend.
I ran into him as he was leaving his course selection appointment, and asked him how it went. "Well, I had 8 minutes with the computer terminal, and had to act fast, but I think I got everything I needed"
"Everything he needed" did NOT include Calculus 1 or Calculus 2. He tested out of those (in 11th grade). It did not include Physics 1. He tested out of that. It did not include Chemistry 1 or Chemistry 2. Seems he tested out of those, too. So he had Physics 2 ("Physics with Calculus - not hard, mom. You just have physics, and then you have calculus, and then you put them together"). And he had Differential Equations. Just saying that made my brain hurt. And he had Engineering Practices (whatever that is). And an introduction to Materials Engineering, which is his major. And "Why Not Change The World", which is an Engineering drink-the-RPI-Koolaid problem solving class that all students take.
And then he had to take a Humanities. Every freshman has to take a Humanities class. But normal freshmen engineers have these 'catered to them' humanities classes like "Introduction to Watching Star Wars" and "Poetry for Physics Majors". And those classes mesh well in the schedule with Calc 1 and Phys 1 and Chem 1. But not very well with Skip's schedule. There was ONE Humanities class that fit in his schedule, and in the rush of his eight-minute slot, he grabbed it. When I asked him about it, he said "It said "Science and Technology..." something, so I'm sure it's one I could take..."
A week later, when classes started, I saw his facebook update in the middle of the day... "Well, apparently I have signed up for a playwriting class. Whoops"
Turns out his "Science and Technology..." class was actually "Science and Technology in Modern Theater" And his classmates were eight seniors. And the final project was to write a twenty page play.
Yeah. You can probably smell my stress-sweat brewing already.
But when I talked with him, and suggested he either speak with his professor or drop/change the class, he was unusually sanguine about things. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, and besides, there really wasn't anything else he could take. Best to just suck it up and motor on, he said.
Yikes.
Lately, he seems quite smugly pleased with himself about his accomplishments in the class. I almost would hazard a guess that this will be the class that he learns the most in. He's already said that his Diff E.Q. (how all the cool kids say it) class is still covering stuff he mastered in 11th grade, and he gets all his Physics With Calculus homework done in class.
He wrote his first play in the first week of class. It had to be a play that could not be produced. Skip always has worked best with definite boundaries on projects, especially ones that purport to require creativity, so I applaud his professor, who gave the class a large list of requirements and boundaries. Less than ten lines of dialogue or monologue. Staged, yet impossible to produce.
Skip's play: "The Quantum Skier" (which I will paraphrase)
Skier enters stage left, tacking right and left down a pristine hillside of new snow. He approaches a tree in the path.
Internal monologue: "Look at the lovely snow. What a perfect day for a run. Oh no. Here comes a tree. There are two paths. Which one should I take? The path on the left has better snow. The path on the right is a more exciting trail. Wait. Why do I need to choose?"
Skier takes both paths.
Curtain.
I found that terribly amusing.
Since then, he's written two more plays. And he seemed pretty pleased with himself. Even offered to email me the scripts. His latest feedback is that he thinks that he'll have a better time in the class then he originally thought. And that it will probably be good for him to do something out of his comfort zone.
My boy. He's growing up.
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