33 and a Third

I remember one of my high school math teachers — Mr. Kerr, at Thorold High. He was one of those teachers that made learning an enjoyable experience. He liked to have fun in class, and his students loved him for it. He was probably one of the reasons why I loved math so much, during high school. (All changed in university, where I learned math is evil.)

I’m pretty sure we learned the concept of negative numbers in grade nine. And although I normally have a terrible memory, I do seem to remember Mr. Kerr teaching us the number line boogie. Kids today learn the concept of negative numbers earlier, grade 7 or 8. They’re doing a review in Ronnie’s grade 9 class. Ronnie has always amazed me: sometimes he shows incredible insight into math concepts. And yet occasionally he struggles with what I consider to be the basics. He’s been struggling a little with negative numbers. Equations like -3 - (-2) would throw him. So, I did my best to remember the boogie Mr. Kerr taught us.

These may not be the exact boogie rules we were taught, but it’s close, and it works.

First, you draw a number line. (Here’s where being in a school with a big chalk board helps). I put numbers on pieces of masking tape and put them on the wall in my hall. Then you follow these rules:
1. Stand facing the first number in the equation (-3 in the equation above)
2. If the operation is addition, turn towards the positive side of the number line. If minus, turn in the other direction. (In our case, positive was to the right, so we turned left for minus)
3. Lastly, boogie on over the number of spots represented by the 2nd number. If it’s positive, boogie forwards. If negative, boogie backwards (So in the equation above, I boogied backwards for 2 spots, arriving at the answer, -1)

After I showed Ronnie the first time, he covered his eyes with his hands and said he’d never get the sight of me “boogieing” out of his head now. (What do we live for, if not to torture our children )

Anyway, Ronnie showed his class. Don’t think he actually boggied, but I hear his math teacher thought it was great.