Last week, critically acclaimed math teacher Mrs. Slominski produced one of her finest masterpieces, a lecture enthralling as well as captivating, utilizing motifs and metaphors to engage her audience like never before.
The lecture started off small, describing the graphic shape of the algebraic expression (X-5)^2=Y. While the average layman may simply take this at face value, experienced cultural critics such as myself immediately identified it as a metaphor the religious idea of the afterlife. The X axis represents happiness, of course, and the Y time. As a parabola, the graph illustrates how before and after our lives we are truly in a state of bliss while our short, miserable lives are our lowest point. This began the recurring motif of pre-natal and post-death experiences that would continue throughout the lecture. The number 5 was also deeply symbolic.
The lecture continued, only becoming more interesting as it went on. Jumping from mathematical example to mathematical example, there were long pauses in which Slominski asked the audience (referred to as students as a metaphor for how we are all students in this life) to try to find the “solutions” to the problems. While some poorly educated lugards around me attempted to actually solve the problems, I sat back, the only one in the room who truly got the meaning. Because there are no real solutions to the problems of life, toiling in search for superficial answers is a fool’s errand.
Perhaps my only criticism of the otherwise excellent lecture is the continual references to “your test next week.” Try as I might, I can’t conceive what this could be a metaphor for. Perhaps the impending test is symbolic of death, but that doesn’t work because, while we have no idea when death will strike, the test is already pre-scheduled. Is it maybe a commentary on how we are all implicitly judged (or “tested, if you will”) by society? But that isn’t a good comparison either.
But the strongest part of the lecture by far was the twist ending. Slominski was saying, “Homework problems for tomorrow will be problems 5 through--” when the bell suddenly cut her off. As the lecture ended and the audience filed out, so many questions flooded my mind. What are the lost homework questions? What do they represent? Was this a planned metaphor or was it the sort of spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment philosophization that comes from such a sophisticated mind? How does the symbolism of 5 work in here?
All in all, while some may criticize Slominski for her convoluted story-telling methods and elitist structuring, I believe her overly-veiled way of revealing the eternal truths of humanity actually increase the profoundness of it all.
Score out of 8 stars: 5
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