One of my favorite poems about my high school days…
Quadratic equations, radicals, and Pi,
Those are the things that make a guy die.
Integers, reals, composites, and more,
These press the dry juices from the school floor.
The Product rule for square roots isn’t so tough,
Our teacher laughs, his voice is too rough.
He explains in our science things that seem clear,
Like the Quadratic formula for the makings of beer.
What use are these teaching, they throw us off track,
With a grind and a rush, with a wump and whack.
Ouch! The ruler is poised above my head at an 12° obtuse angle.
Oh for a rope that I might gladly to strangle.
Polynomial equations, they burn and sizzle,
Leaving my hare to stick up and frizzle.
Radical expressions appear in my eyes,
Percentage and diagrams, they make me want to… bawl.
With a fierce heat rays the teacher has a phase,
And describes my multiplicative idenity for craze.
Then with a ping and a pang, the fiddle string broke,
I am on the floor writhing, I’m having a stroke.
Formulas for energy pop through my head,
Like E = mc squared, and et cet…
Polynomials too, they rise and they burst,
Oh for some H2O do I thirst.
Hey and if you think I am finished then you must be wrong!
I still have to explain Trichotomy azioms, and a diphthong.
And did I mention Constants of proportionality, convex polygons, and disjunctions?
There is so much more to learn, I might have a disfunction.
Oh yes, Algebra’s fun, don’t get me wrong….
Just let me figure out this Pythagorean
~nathanyoder 2004