Is That a Dumb Question?

As a person who tends to be very loquacious, a lot of what I say are questions. My mind moves at a very quick speed and it’s often that when thinking through a process, I skip right over a part or two. This leads to the problem of me having a lot of questions and feeling clueless frequently. For example, when thinking through a math equation, I go straight from the equation to the answer, but I could never explain how I got there. Rationally thought out, I went through a process to get the answer but I can’t explain what that process was. That kind of situation happens a lot with many things other than math.

A specific time when this happened, was in math class, sophomore year. I was in my second semester of geometry and I was really struggling right before Covid-19 hit. I would pass in my work and get full marks with ease, but I would still need to redo it because I didn’t know my work. Anytime I went to right out the process of how I got to the mathematical solution, I would overcomplicate it and mess up, making most of my answers wrong the second time through. That was the closest I’ve ever been to failing a math class.

One day, one of my friends and I were sitting in our everyday seats, watching as our teacher wrote the equation on the board, demonstrating how to solve the problem. My friend solved it with ease, writing multiplication and division all over her paper to help her figure out the process while i sat and stared at the board until I figured out the answer in my head. We ended up with the same answer, but when our teacher came over to check our work, I was accused with copying hers, no matter how much we both denied the statement. My teacher then told me to show her that I could do it, and gave me a new problem, insisting I wrote down the steps I took to get the answer this time.

After staring at the page for a bit, I figured out my answer. Only problem was I didn’t know how to show the process. I began to write my thought process on how I thought the problem was solved but then realized I had no clue. I felt so stupid in that moment, not being able to explain myself and how I got it right. So, I asked my teacher for help, despite my pride wanting to prove to her that I could do it.

“How do I solve this equation?” I asked her, although the answer was already on the page. I swallowed my pride and accepted the defeat. I felt so dumb in the moment, needing to ask for help on something I clearly knew how to do. She helped me out and explained the process, but she never made me feel bad for needing the help.

There is no question too stupid

After that, I begun working everyday at home to try and learn new processes as they were taught in class, essentially becoming my own math tutor. It was a great turning point for me, knowing that I could finally do it felt like a huge success. It still takes me extra time to learn the process of things but in the end I know I can do it. I never wanted to feel stupid like that again, I never wanted to be called out like that in front of a whole class again. So, I worked to make sure it never would happen again.