Ever since I was a kid I have loved dum-dums lollipops. My favorite flavor has always been blue raspberry. I knew several people who real liked butterscotch and root beer, but I always looked for blue raspberry.

In my undergraduate studies I took a course called MATH 206: Fundamentals of Geometry for Teachers where I sat with a classmate named Adam (to hear more about him, read “Get your rhomb-a** out of here!). Adam was very friendly and a great teammate in the classroom. He always offered his perspective and gave great feedback during classroom and table discussions.

For context, it is important to note that I was in this course to fulfill by desired middle grades mathematics teaching certification while also seeking a secondary mathematics teaching certification. The course was intended for elementary education majors as well.

One of our first classroom explorations was a discovery of the formula for the interior angle sum of any n-gon (a polygon, closed shape with no curves, with n number of sides). Adam produced a conjecture that the formula was 180*n-2, and shared this with the class. I piped in and said that that was incorrect because there were some missing parentheses. Our professor, Mr. Brown, did not quite know the personalities in the class and to mediate what potentially might have been construed as harsh on my part, he calmly said “yeah, there might be some missing parentheses there.”

Mr. Brown most definitely said the “yeah.” He was very laid back. In fact, the head of the mathematics department at the time once said “Mr. Brown is so laid back, that he might fall over.” So to reread his response to yourself, throw in a “yeahhhh.”

Throughout the months of the class, everyone came to notice that I loved participating and voicing my thoughts and so did Adam, and I certainly did not intend to come across as an egotist.

One time on one of my exams I did some extra math (it was just a simple linear equation) and I wrote “I just can’t stop the math!!!” and Mr. Brown just shook his head at me. For context, today Mr. Brown periodically calls me “Crazy Rachel.” He has called me this (in an endearing way) to his students who have observed in my classroom and in writing. Don’t worry. It’s fitting.

Okay, so I was a bit EXTRA in that class… and typically in my life. It’s sort of a part of who I am, and I like it.

So, as Adam continued to be at my table he was continually kind and helpful. Kind enough to provide his table-mates with dum-dum lollipops! He had them nearly every class. I was always glad to partake.

Years later Adam ended up teaching at a K-8 school in my district. I saw him at a district-wide PD and he came over to say hello and I was engaging in conversation in my extra way and he proceeds to tell me that he used to give me dum-dums in class to shut me up!

Hahahaha! I took no offense. I started bringing dum-dums to staff meetings after that…. just kidding.