‘Rithmetic by B.J. Novak [making an argument by describing an argument, and people’s reaction to that argument – so what’s his point?]
The principal called everyone into the auditorium. Everyone K – 8. Not janitors.
“Everybody, I want you to quiet down and turn off your phones,” he said. People weren’t much quieter. “Nothing I say leaves this room. And if you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it.” They still weren’t totally quiet, but quiet enough for him to start.
“Does anybody hate school?” No one raised a hand, and whispered laughter again bubbled to the surface of the room. The principal made an angry face, the kind of angry face people don’t fake. “Oh, bull - - - -! You all hate school!” Now they were quiet. The principal walked up to the whiteboard with three words on it.
“They say school teachers three things,” said the principal, pointing with his permanent marker. “Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmetic – short for ‘arithmetic.’ Which is something, of course, that you know from’Reading.’” He put his sharpie at the beginning of the third word. “I think the problem,” he said, squeaking a line through it, “is ‘Rithmetic.
“What’s the difference between this school and a happy retirement community?” The room was silent again. “The difference is ‘rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days – that’s the dream, right? ‘What do you do all day?’ ‘Some reading, a little writing.’ Sounds idyllic, right? And yet school sucks. Everybody hates it. What’s the difference? ‘Rithmetic! It’s time someone put their finger on the f---ing obvious thing. And I’m the principal, so I’m that person, and I’m going to abolish it. Now,” he said, looking for a glass of water to sip from and finding none, “now, are you going to be unprepared for some aspects of life? Probably. Yes. But you know what? You will have phones with calculators on them. You will have friends that can do math. My mom, God blass her – I love my mom, and she doesn’t know whether a third of a cup of flour is bigger than a fourth of a cup. You know what she does? Is anybody here honestly wondering, Oh my God, how the hell does anything get baked?! Of course not, and you’re right not to worry. She asks my dad – he knows. Or these days, you ask Google or whatever you use nowadays; you find out in two seconds. And also, it’s the kind of think=g you just pick up. Let’s say you’re working at a restaurant, and they offer you a ten percent raise. You’ll figure out what that means. You will! It’s just too interesting, it’s too relevant, it’s about you and money. You’re not going to let yourself get screwed.
“Now do I wish you all knew math? Were great at math? Were f---ingmathematicians? Of course! It’d be better. But not much better, listen to me. Not so much better that it’s worth turning eight years of potential heaven – wait, nine? K-one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, yeah, nine” – he wasn’t, as was becoming clear, much of a math guy – “nine years of heaven of just reading books and jotting down your thoughts about them – it’s just not worth turning nine years of heaven into nine years of hell. You’ll get to high school, and you’ll be behind in math, fine. But probably not that far – the other schools in this town are sh--, let’s be honest.”
Here there was a sound wave of school spirit: “Whooo!”
So you all get to high school, and yes, you’re behind in math. But you’re so happy. Listen to me. This is so big-picture important. You’re so good at reading and writing. Okay? You write the most amazing college essay, you ace all your English and history and social studies classes – it’ll all even out. At least even out. Plus,” he said, “plus, you had the best eight years of your life! Childhood! Years you’ll always remember – hell, maybe you’ll even write a book about them – a beautiful one! So I’m just going to do this. I’m the principal. We are, now, a zero-mathematics school. See, you get what that means: zero, none. How did you know what ‘zero’ meant, just now? From your incredible math educations at Clark Street? No. Life. Context clues. See? So: who is ready to make school something that is only about reading and writing – reading fiction and the great true stories of history, and then writing about what’s cool and interesting about them? And also music and art and gym and all that stuff, and math teachers, don’t worry, you’ll keep your jobs, we’ll just put you on other stuff. But mostly, reading and writing. How about it? How about we go for this plan and have the happiest, and most literate, kids in the state – come what may!”
The students and many teachers cheered.
“Now I need to know you’re all in on this,” said the principal, lowering his tone. “Because you are giving up your math educations. That could be a serious thing. I don’t want you guys running up to me crying, ‘ Mr. McLaughlin, Principal McLaughlin, we didn’t learn maaaath, now we can’t get into collllllege.’ You just won’t know math. Are you really fine with that? Is anyone not okay with that?”
One small hand went up. A few bigger hands clapped for the small hand.
“Arush? You want to learn math?”
The boy’s head nodded.
“What if we set you up with a private tutor? Would that be okay?”
The boy nodded again and his hand went back down.
“Does anyone else want private tutoring after school and on weekends? No one wants that, right? I really think you’ll all be fine,” said the principal quickly. “I promise. I really do believe in this plan. I just needed to say that, full disclosure, etcetera. But it looks like you guys are on board, right? I think this is a good decision, I really do. An exciting one! So from this moment onward: I declare, no more math! This is a math-free school! Do you want that Clark Street K – 8? Do you want to say NO . . . MORE . . . MATH . . . EVER?!”
The auditorium shook with cheers. All the children got swept away in it, even the one’s who had secretly liked math, their shy enthusiasms for the shapes of numbers and the comfort of order suddenly crushed to death forever by this unprecedented force of peer and authority pressure teaming up on them together, in a surprise attack, right in the middle of the auditorium, where nothing interesting had ever happened before.
“All right. Now, nobody can say anything,” said the principal. “Okay?”
The students nodded. Some waved a finger across their lips vertically to indicate shhhh, and some waved a finger horizontally to indicate lips are sealed, and the rest of the students, most of them, waved their fingers in front of their faces in a vague, circular pattern that was their best attempt to copy what they could make out of the gestures around them.
“Nobody says anything.”
They nodded again.
Everybody said everything.
Soon the principal was fired.
The principal didn’t care. He was sick of it, sick of all of it. He figured something like this would probably happen. But he might as well go out this way, right? That’s what he figured. He had been at this job for a long time, and he was done. Whether the years had finally cracked his spirit, or had finally cracked the shell around his spirit – who was to say, and, really, who cared?
He retired to a house by the beach in Florida and spent the rest of his days reading and writing.
[possibly pair this story with Between Practice and Perfection by Azizat Danmole?]