Hey, Mom, did you know we have another teacher?
Another teacher?
Yeah, a math teacher. He comes in once a week. He came last year too.
Really? What for?
To teach math, duh.
Easy Attitude Guy.
Right, sorry. (hands up, palms facing me, eyebrows up as if to say, “Whoa, chill, I got it”) To teach math, Mom. He comes to teach math. Once a week—every Tuesday. He comes and we all listen and then Ms. Jones* learns how to teach us and then she helps us the rest of the week until Mr. Miller comes again to teach us something new.
Do you like that?
Yeah, it’s cool. And Brandon? Brandon is to Ms. Jones like Mr. Miller is to us.
Nice with analogies. Tell me how that works.
Well, number lines aren’t really Ms. Jones’ thing, so Brandon monitors her closely when she does them and when she makes a mistake her helps her fix it.
Like Mr. Miller monitors you and your classmates?
Yeah.
That’s nice of Brandon.
Yeah, he’s a nice guy.
So, tell me about this Mr. Miller.
Well, he’s bald.
Oh yeah?
Yeah, he’s bald.
What else do you know about him?
He’s married.
A husband or wife?
Wife.
How do you know? Does he wear a wedding ring?
No.
Well then how do you know?
He talked about her in a problem last week. “I have 287 pieces of candy; my wife has 218. How many do we have in all?” See? (Raised eyebrows, shoulder shrug) A wife.
Huh. Cool. What else? Is he young or old?
In between-ish (hand flat, rotating side to side). Probably middle 40’s-ish.
Like Daddy?
Yeah, except he’s all bald and Dad’s only a little bald on the top. Also, he doesn’t have a beard or mustache. Only a little facial hair.
Wait, what? He has facial hair but not a beard or mustache?
Yeah, you know, like scraggly short-ish hair (hand close to face making patting motion but not quite touching it).
You mean, like stubble?
Yeah, stubble. Dude needs to shave.
So he’s middle 40’s-ish, bald, has stubble on his face, he has a wife, and he’s good at math.
Yep (lips pursed, head nodding) that about covers it.
Cool.
Yep.