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+---- Thread: A Cruddy Christmas / "Math" Books (/showthread.php?tid=15982)
A Cruddy Christmas / "Math" Books - Elyse - 07-25-2014
I dreamt that I was waiting somewhere for my husband and boys. It seems like I had been waiting for them forever and I was getting very hungry and thirsty. There were some vending machines across from me. One sold all kinds of sodas and the other all kinds of snacks. What I really wanted was water, but there was only soda. There were a few other women in the room waiting with me, and when I dug around in my purse for some money, they scowled at me making me feel VERY uncomfortable. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money in this dream, or I might have offered to get everyone something so that they would stop being so bitter. As luck would have it, the soda vending machine didn't work and had eaten my money. I decided to try the snack machine, but couldn't decide on a snack right away. The women fidgeted in their uncomfortable metal seats while I tried to make a decision. I ended up getting a small bag of popcorn. Just after it fell, my husband and boys came around the corner. I greeted them and gave the popcorn to my boys to share, but they didn't want it for some reason. (Strange since they just LOVE popcorn) There was a sigh of relief from the women, and I turned to look at them and wonder just what their problem was with me.
We had met up with my parents somewhere who decided that we should take the boys out for pizza. Everyone loves pizza, right? The pizza restaurant was on top of a tall hill, and for whatever reason, I had to walk while everyone else drove. When I made it to the top of the hill, I had somehow walked up the wrong side, and was now behind the restaurant where there was a big fence of some sort. In the fence was a large flat field of grass. There were very large men guarding the field and supervising women. When I came across this, two men grabbed me and shoved me into the field to work with the other women ignoring me when I told them that I didn't belong there and that I had to meet up with my husband at the restaurant not far from where we were.
It was clear that I wasn't going to get across from them and I was getting worried that they might hurt me if I didn't do what they wanted so I watched the other women for a second to see just what it was we were supposed to be doing. The women all had some sort of flat metal thing that probably stood no more than a few inches off the ground it was about a couple of feet long and a foot wide and they had to bend over and hold it down and push while running hunched over. I wasn't sure if this thing cut the grass or just bent it over, but it was clear that this was very uncomfortable, hard, backbreaking work. I had only done a little when my husband and boys found me then demanded that I be released. This time I was.
We returned home and in a room was a large, fake Christmas tree. It had been decorated with red, white, and gold ribbons that were now tattered and torn. Most of the ornaments were broken or tarnished... it was more of an eyesore than anything. Looking at it made me feel horrible. In the dream, it seemed like we had never really taken it down. It had been up all year for many years and it hurt to see it in such a cruddy condition. My husband asked me to fix it up for the boys... but I told him that I wasn't sure how I was supposed to do that. We just didn't have any money for new decorations. He told me he knew that I would find some way, I always do, then he handed me an ornament. This was a very strange ornament. I've never seen it before, but it was clearly very old and not in the best condition. It was an ornament of a large white paper bag with handles on it. The actual size of the ornament was maybe around 5-6 inches. Inside of the white paper bag was a long loaf of what looked to be French bread. On two sides of the bag there were two tiny lights that no longer worked. I tipped the bag over and water poured out, and when it was all gone, the ornament lit up. On one side of the bag was a tiny blue light, and I think the other side had a tiny white light. There was a decoration or symbol on the bag, but I can't remember what it was now. I was just so happy to be able to put something on the tree that would light up and be somewhat pretty!
We didn't have money for the tree, so it goes without saying that we didn't have much money for gifts for the boys. What I did have for them was some sort of school books. I was excited to get them out and put them under the tree, but first I wanted to look through them. When I opened the books, I was horrified. They were full of nonsense. Everything I read made absolutely NO SENSE to me. And the more I read, the more angry I got.
One of the problems was a word problem for math. It asked something along the lines of 'if you had so and so many apples, and so and so takes so many of them, how many apples are left?' Well, that should have been an easy question. But you didn't answer the question like that. The student had to get a large needle and yarn and follow instructions given to sew into the book to find the answer. So to be clear, you didn't work out a math problem to obtain the answer. You never actually solve the problem. The student would be told to start at a certain point and make a 1/4th inch 90 degree stitch here followed by a so many degree, slightly curved stich here or there. In the end, the kid would have to follow all of these directions to make a perfect stitch of the answer. The answer for this particular question was 12.
I was very upset that this book didn't teach my child math at all, instead, it taught how to follow very detailed instructions in order to get the correct answer. All I could think before I woke up was "Is this kindergarten or is this a sweat shop!?"