Tim Donovan
Mr. Coauette held math in high esteem. Once, when the bell rang he asked "what class do you have next, social studies?" "Science" somebody replied. "Oh science" he said. "Well, mathematics is the queen of sciences."
Mr. Coauette stressed the importance of learning math. He gave an example: Someone working for a carpet company is told to estimate of how much it would cost to carpet the floors of a multi storey building. He tells the owners of the building it'll cost $150,000. They had calculated it would cost $225,000. The owners seize on this mistake and the company rep is dismissed. "One more mistake like that and I'm out of business" the boss says.
One time some kids asked Mr. Coauette to settle an argument. Is "more than one" the same as "two or more"? "If you're talking about whole numbers it doesn't make any difference" he replied. But, drawing a number line he pointed out that "it could be one and a fifth…."
Another time he asked the class what do you call an angle formed by two lines perpendicular to one another. "A ninety degree angle" somebody replied. "Well, it is ninety degrees but what do you call it?" I raised my hand and answered "a right angle" and he nodded. Pointing to the door and corners of the room, Mr. Coauette went on to say that you see right angles everywhere, and "we're quick to notice if something isn't a perfect right angle, if it's crooked."
I seem to recall one day Mr. Coauette said in effect that it takes advanced math to figure out how long it takes light from the sun to reach earth. Classmate Richard Chenard said "eight minutes" which was true. All it takes is simple arithmetic. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second or a million miles in over 5 seconds. The earth-sun distance is 93 million miles. Therefore it takes about 500 seconds for the sun's light to reach earth. Divide 500 by 60 to get minutes and it comes to 8 minutes (or around 8.3).
Mr. Coauette stressed the importance of learning math. He gave an example: Someone working for a carpet company is told to estimate of how much it would cost to carpet the floors of a multi storey building. He tells the owners of the building it'll cost $150,000. They had calculated it would cost $225,000. The owners seize on this mistake and the company rep is dismissed. "One more mistake like that and I'm out of business" the boss says.
One time some kids asked Mr. Coauette to settle an argument. Is "more than one" the same as "two or more"? "If you're talking about whole numbers it doesn't make any difference" he replied. But, drawing a number line he pointed out that "it could be one and a fifth…."
Another time he asked the class what do you call an angle formed by two lines perpendicular to one another. "A ninety degree angle" somebody replied. "Well, it is ninety degrees but what do you call it?" I raised my hand and answered "a right angle" and he nodded. Pointing to the door and corners of the room, Mr. Coauette went on to say that you see right angles everywhere, and "we're quick to notice if something isn't a perfect right angle, if it's crooked."
I seem to recall one day Mr. Coauette said in effect that it takes advanced math to figure out how long it takes light from the sun to reach earth. Classmate Richard Chenard said "eight minutes" which was true. All it takes is simple arithmetic. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second or a million miles in over 5 seconds. The earth-sun distance is 93 million miles. Therefore it takes about 500 seconds for the sun's light to reach earth. Divide 500 by 60 to get minutes and it comes to 8 minutes (or around 8.3).
