ホンマにアホやなぁ！（１７）

ホンマにアホやなぁ！（１７）  

 第三章、数学講師になるまで　

　数学に対する執着は残っていた。
最初に
「ボクは数学が苦手なのだろうか？」
　と疑問を持ち始めたのは、四日市高校の２年生の頃。１９７０年代の四日市高校は男子の割合が大きく、男子クラスがあり私は男子クラスに在籍していた。

　当時、男子は理系に進むのが大多数だった。その中にあって、テストの度に数学が壊滅的な点数になっていた。全国の模試なら、そこそこでも四日市高校の男子クラスではどうしても周囲の子と点数を比較してしまう。平均点と比べてしまう。

　点数だけでもない。三角関数、対数、微積分と進むにつれて
「もうボクの頭には入りきれない」
　と友人にぼやいていたのを思い出す。物理で１３点を取り、
「こんなのありえない！」
　とショックを受けて、クシャクシャにして捨ててしまった。私は数学の公式を使う場合に、
「証明できないと、使う気になれない」
　というタイプだった。今思うと、それでは前に進めない。結局、自分が何をやっているのか分からなくなり気持ちが混乱し始めた。そして、１９７４年の大学受験の５日前を迎えた。

Chapter 3, Becoming a Math Teacher　

　My obsession with mathematics remained.
At first, I wondered
I was a sophomore at Yokkaichi High School in the 1970s when I began to wonder, "Am I bad at math?"
　In the 1970s, Yokkaichi High School had a large percentage of boys, and I was enrolled in the boys' class.

　At that time, the majority of boys were going into the sciences. Among them, I had devastating scores in mathematics on every test. Even though my scores on the national mock exams were good, in the boys' class at Yokkaichi High School, I couldn't help but compare my scores with those of the other students around me. They would compare their scores to the average.

　It's not just about the score. As we moved on to trigonometric functions, logarithms, and calculus, I found myself saying, "I can't get into this anymore.
"I can't get into it anymore.
　I remember blurting out to a friend, "I can't get my head around it anymore. I got a 13 in physics.
This is impossible!"
　I was so shocked that I crumpled it up and threw it away. I remember that when I used a math formula, I would say to myself, "If I can't prove it
"If I can't prove it, I can't use it.
　I was the type of person who said, "If I can't prove it, I can't use it. Now I realize that I can't move forward with that. In the end, I started to feel confused because I didn't know what I was doing. Then came the fifth day before the 1974 university entrance exam.