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Fitness instructors can't do maths

3/28/2014

3 Comments

 
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I offered to help someone with their kid's maths homework today.
She gave me 'a look'.  You know, one of *those* looks.
"It's quite hard, she's in the top set"
"No problem"
"Well, we've both had a look and have no idea, so..."
Puzzled, I left it there and went home.

And once there, then I got it.  I realised what the problem was.

I'm her fitness instructor.  I go to work in trainers and trackies.  
I know about step, I know about weights, I know about running.
Which means I don't know, or worse, I can't know about maths(*).
She only sees what I am now.


And I got to wondering if we all do this.  We make assumptions.  We see what's in front of us.

We need to go further than this.  Much further.

We need to be open to the possibility that it wasn't always this way.  That people have stories.  And journeys.  That they may be capable of things that you have no inkling of.

And here's the other thing...  
Let's also think of what they might be capable of in the future.  What they may become.  
Let's stop making assumptions.
(*) In case you're wondering, I have a degree in maths from my previous life - one significantly less sweaty and much more academic than my life now!
3 Comments
Mick Davidson
3/28/2014 05:30:48 am

Quite right Clare, although many assumptions aren't actually harmful, it's not good practise for humans to leave them unchecked. One of the things I like an admire about you is that you are 'complicated' and one of the most interesting people I know.
It's always a shock when something happens to alert one to one's own assumptions, but after the ego's recovered, we're normally better off for it. See you on the busway. :)

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Caroline Davey
1/26/2015 09:59:46 pm

Hi Clare.

People always make assumptions. Being blonde haired people think you can't understand things and that things need to be explained in a simple way.

Blondes always are perceived as "dumb", the looks I get sometimes when I tell people I'm doing a Maths and Statistics degree is priceless.

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Dave Smith
1/26/2015 11:54:33 pm

It wouldn't be the first time that I have heard someone taking a class say "just another 12" followed by me counting six and then being told "last eight" and me just not arguing. So perhaps it isn't the higher mathematics which are being questioned but the arithmetic skills (of the profession at large not of you in particular.)

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