Those Mathletes Have Nothing on Me

Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit petty about this, but those math club kids really got under my skin the other day. You know how it is, they come into class and act like they're above everyone else because they can solve quadratic equations faster than you can say 'x squared plus y squared equals r squared'. It's not that I'm bad at math, mind you; actually, I used to be pretty good at it back in the day. But now, teaching it for years has kind of dulled my edge, and these kids have this way of making me feel like a relic from the past. Anyway, so today was our big field trip, and we were supposed to meet up with another class outside. Well, those mathletes missed their bus by 10 minutes or something ridiculous and then showed up late because they decided to solve some complex problem on their walk over instead of getting there when the rest of us did. Honestly, I was tempted to just turn around and go back inside, but who am I to let a group of high schoolers dictate my schedule? But here's the thing: that bus incident wasn't even the reason for me feeling a little frustrated today. No, it goes way deeper than that. See, my sister keeps bragging about her son's math achievements and how he got into some kind of gifted program or something equally impressive-sounding. It just grated on me so much that I felt like I had to do something, anything!, to prove that teaching isn't a lesser profession because you're not 'making the next big discovery'. But yeah, it's silly, right? Just a bunch of grown-up jealousy over some math stuff.