Pythagoras Does the Math

    (PYTHAGORAS is helping KATIE with her homework.)

KATIE:  ...And I have to teach the kids to do it this way.

PYTHAGORAS:  But why would you make a tree out of the number eight?

KATIE:  To show how it’s made up of four groups of other numbers.

PYTHAGORAS:  And what’s that?

KATIE:  It’s a crocodile.

PYTHAGORAS:  What do you need a crocodile for?

KATIE:  It’s acting as a multiplier.

PYTHAGORAS:  But we’re not doing multiplication.

KATIE:  We have to multiply to subtract.

PYTHAGORAS:  No, you don’t.

KATIE:  You do if you want to get points for you work.

PYTHAGORAS:  Why do you need points for the work?  You should only need points for the answer.

KATIE:  But the work helps them get to the answer.

PYTHAGORAS:  What’s the problem again?

KATIE:  What’s ten minus eight?

PYTAHGORAS:  Okay, so--you know how you have fingers?

KATIE:  I know where you’re going with this.

PYTHAGORAS:  Ten of them, in fact.

KATIE:  I get it, I get it.

PYTHAGORAS:  And you see how you can hold all of them up and then slowly take eight of them down?

KATIE:  I--

PYTHAGORAS:  And then count what’s left?

KATIE:  I know how to do that, but that’s not how we teach it.

PYTHAGORAS:  So what do you do instead?

KATIE:  We make the eight into a tree, the ten into a ham sandwich, there’s a crocodile that acts a multiplier, and a baseball diamond that tells you whether or not you have to fold the paper into the shape of a goose.

PYTHAGORAS:  We used to execute people for talking the way you are.

KATIE:  Could you just help me?

PYTHAGORAS:  No. I can help with math.  This isn’t mad, it’s madness.

KATIE:  But I have to teach this.

PYTHAGORAS:  To who? What group of brilliant sociopaths could possibly logic in what you’re talking about?

KATIE:  Eight-year-olds.

PYTHAGORAS:  You should be fed to lions.

KATIE:  There are different ways of teaching things.

PYTHAGORAS:  Yes, right ways and wrong ways.

KATIE:  There have to be upsides to this.

PYTHAGORAS:  As far as I can tell, the upside is that after spending two hours helping your child with this every night, you’ll tell your friends how miserable you are, they’ll refrain from having children, and overpopulation will no longer be a concern.

KATIE:  And you get really good at drawing ham sandwiches.

PYTHAGORAS:  Free yourself from this torture, Katie.  Modern degenerates are bastardized my work.  I feel like Coco Chanel looking at the Walmart spring collection.

KATIE:  You’re probably right.  I was thinking of changing my major anyway.  Teaching isn’t for me.

PYTHAGORAS:  Because your students keep plotting to poison you?

KATIE:  That--and I don’t know how I’m supposed to teach something if I don’t understand it myself.

PYTHAGORAS:  Sometimes good teaching is passing along that which you do not understand with trust that those who come after you will break free from the webs which time did not allow you to untangle.

KATIE:  Wow, that’s really profound.

PYTHAGORAS:  Thank you, I read it on a poster in a dentist’s office yesterday.

KATIE:  I think I’m going to try and finish up this assignment.

PYTHAGORAS:  Then I shall persevere with you, Katie.  Pythagoras was many things, but he was not a coward.

KATIE:  It’s long division.

PYTHAGORAS:  Well, this was fun.  Good luck, Katie.

KATIE:  I knew I should have called Euclid.

    End of Play