2+2=?

Tonight, I am reminded of how everyone of us has our own  talents. For as long as I can remember I have loved numbers. Call me crazy, but math was and is my favorite school subject. In school, I was the first person in my third grade class to memorize all the  multiplication. When the teacher would put the numbers on the chalk board, they were in my head. This is the one subject that I never had to think about. I aced all the exams, assignments, and quizzes and even did the extra credit problems. I was the math geek that everyone came to to ask questions. I was the one that everyone wanted to be friends with in math class, just so they had some chance of getting a passing grade.  By the time I was in the 9th grade  I was taking college credit math courses and by the time I was a  junior I had finished all the math courses I would ever need for college. Although math was my strength, English was not. I may be able to add millions of numbers together in my head, but you put me in front of a computer and tell me to write a paper... I crumble. I sit there for hours looking at the white screen in hopes by some miracle the words would start flowing.  There would be times where all I wanted to do  was pull my hair out, scream, and even cry. After many hours and hard concentration,  I thought that I had finally written a suitable paper. Every time the teacher would hand back that paper, I was probably the only student that had the most errors. There are probably some of you who are reading this blog and noticing all of my errors now  and yes, I am that bad. My brother is an English major. He can write a paper at the drop of a hat and its perfect. At one point in time, I had him peer edit a paper of mine. He could not even get through the first paragraph without saying "This is not a paper".  I often thought how could two siblings be so different? How could I be so good in math and so horrible in English. How could Scottie be so good in English and hate math? After finishing math so long ago, I have forgotten just how much people hate it.
I consider my husband to be an intelligent person. When Gabe and I first got married, we had to go through the immigration process for him to be a permanent  resident. During an appointment at the immigration office, Gabe was handed a booklet. This booklet contained all the information about becoming a citizen of the U.S. That evening Gabe and I sat down and opened the booklet. There were things like what to expect on the citizen test. There is a writing portion, a vocabulary portion, and then a history portion. Within the history portion you are asked ten questions that are pulled from a bank of 100 questions about the U.S. history. I thought it would be fun to go through the questions to see how much Gabe knew about U.S. history without even studying. Well, the results were Gabe answered 97 out of 100 questions right. I instantly felt dumb. How could someone that had only lived in the U.S. for a short time, know more history then me who has lived here my entire life. I got a little discouraged and really had to rethink my intelligence. But this afternoon I was reminded of something very important. Gabe is taking math right now.   As we sat down at our kitchen table so that I could review the concepts that he had been learning the last few weeks. I handed him a practice quiz that I had taken a good amount of time to make that entailed all of the problems that he would expect to find on his exam tomorrow.  After reviewing the concepts, I set the cell phone alarm to go off in one hour. He had one hour to finish this practice exam on his own without any help. I had left the room for a short moment and upon returning the practice exam was on the other side of the table, and Gabe's head was laying down.  It had only been five minutes since he began the exam. Needless to say, we went through the practice exam together and I made a different one that he can take tonight without any help. As I sat there explaining the concepts that I knew all so well, and Gabe sitting there frustrated and whispering the words "I just don't get it". I was reminded that I am not dumb, nor should I question my intelligence because I can't write a paper, or recall history. Gabe should not feel dumb or question his intelligence because he does not understand math.  Any one of you should not feel dumb or question your intelligence. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. And lucky for us, our children will have a father who can teach them to write and teach history, and a mother who can teach math and science. They get the best of both worlds.