UMTYMP

last night i checked my brother's UMTYMP homework.

which brought back many memories! UMTYMP was one of the (maybe THE) defining experiences of my middle school and high school life. i entered the university of minnesota math program in 7th grade, and for the next two years took algebra i, algebra ii, geometry, and precalculus. 9th grade was the start of 3 years of calculus (no math in 12th grade!). during these 5 years, we covered about a chapter a week, and amazingly, the teacher usually was able to cover the material for the entire chapter during the two (solid) hours we spent in class each week. it was in UMTYMP that i learned to write my math homework neatly, to fully utilize the example problems in my math textbook, and the joy of finishing homework ahead of time. i have always been good at following directions, and afterall, what is an algebra textbook but a giant book of protocols? it was after entering UMTYMP in 7th grade when i first felt the pressure of a full homework load, and first experienced the cramped hand of a two hour lecture and note taking session. it was not only the math, but also many other aspects, that made up the cherished experience of UMTYMP. taking math with the same group of people for 5 years, i got to know some interesting people and made some very dear friends. every thursday we gathered at the local community college from our respective schools across town to catch up, copy homework (i was almost always the copiee), tease each other, eat snacks, and of course listen to lecture. maybe the most important aspect of UMTYMP was a very amazing professor, dr. schwartzbauer, a university of minnesota math professor who we had for calculus i and ii. actually, he was old, unmarried, lived with his mother, and had cats, but we idolized him. he was truly an amazing teacher and very passionate about teaching us the magical subject of calculus. he also gave us his take on a whole host of other topics. i remember he did not believe in the thinning of the ozone layer and, during one lecture, explained to us the chemistry behind his theory (despite being a math professor). he also does not go out of his way to recycle (and i have learned from him in that respect). his favorite movie is citizen kane and his favorite author is ayn rand. we, being bright-eyed and innocent, had no clue who ayn rand was (let alone how to pronounce her name!), but promptly went out and read the fountainhead (still one of my favorite novels!). i have heard that dr. schwartzbauer has since retired: a huge loss for the UMTYMP program.

anyway, back to last night (excuse the above paragraph, i just had to indulge my UMTYMP memories). all of a sudden my mom decided i should check my brother's math homework. she had been doing this for him last semester, and had done this for me during my first year of UMTYMP. my brother is in 7th grade, and in the second semester of UMTYMP's algebra sequence. when i came home from work last night, i found that actually working through / checking the problems was not time consuming at all. while doing this algebra homework the first time around in 7th grade i felt as if i was doing math all week, i found that i can now do the whole week's homework in under two hours. i guess i have become older and wiser! (although, i did always think that he has less homework now than i did during my algebra year in UMTYMP. turns out, his algebra i and algebra ii are being covered by ONE textbook, while i had to go through TWO textbooks in one school year when i was in the program. my two books were each no less thick than his one book. so, we almost always did a whole chapter a week, while i found that my brother's class often splits one chapter into two weeks). this week was the first 4 sections of chapter 8, something about functions. i think this was his first introduction to functions (i hope so), because i heard him say, "f times a plus f times b" when referring to f(a) + f(b). then i asked him what a function was, and all he could do was point to the diagram of a "function box" in his textbook. (it kind of looked like a weird food processor. put x in through the top and it spits out f(x) through a spigot on the side.) it was quite obvious he had not taken the time to read completely the text and the example problems. does he think he is too good for the book? obviously he is not. he had to completely redo all the problems for section 8.3. as i was checking, he was like, "o i do not have that many wrong?" i was like, "well this whole section is wrong." he's like, "well that's encouraging." IS IT MY JOB TO BE ENCOURAGING?! plus his problem is he thinks he does not need to read the book, so the solution should be to beat him down and cut off some of that confidence! i guess my brother is not like me. he likes positive reinforcement, and i do not. also, i do not really believe in it. to combat his laziness, my mom and i have devised a new system (i think a mix of positive reinforcement and negative punishment? or is it positive punishment? idk, i hated psychology.):

A. my brother gets $10 if, for that week, he gets every problem correct. (won't likely happen.)

B. my brother gets $3 if he gets less than or equal to 3 problems wrong. (still unlikely.)

C. my brother has to pay us $1 if... (much more effective, muahaha!)
1. my brother cannot correctly answer something specifically stated in the textbook.
2. he copies a problem statement from the textbook incorrectly.
3. he misses answering parts of a problem.
4. he misses a negative sign.

actually, i came up with part C, at which point my brother started crying, so my mom appended part A, at which point he still would not stop crying, so then she added part B. another one of his problems is that he likes to wait until the last minute to finish his homework. so, while i was trying to check his homework, he was still doing it, meaning we were fighting over the textbook. and we were at it until midnight. i do not have a creative way to fix this, only to say, "you have to finish half of the problems over the weekend."

after less than a week of blogging, i have realized, i tend to ramble. this got really long. but, hopefully you can see that UMTYMP was really one of the most cherished experiences of my life. and it just really irks me that my brother does not do his math homework with the same amount of respect and tedium that i once did.