2008 Election Central "Math Anxiety"

Hillary Clinton's arguments about Florida and Michigan remind me of something.

Do you really want to know why children in the public schools who fail to learn constitute such a serious societal problem. It will be worth your while to read what follows.

 Among the children in the public schools who, for whatever reason, have extreme and continuing difficulty with mathematics, some develop a condition known as "Math Anxiety". This is recognized by one or more of several troublesome changes in behavior.

There are those math anxious youngsters who become very upset nervous and not themselves in the presence of mathematical challenges or anything suggestive of a mathematical challenge that they may have to face.

Then there is the avoidance reaction. Believing they couldn't possibly handle math and their own disruptive emotional reaction when in the presence of math. tasks they go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid them or anything like them.

The third type of unusual behavior occurs when the student has no choice but to confront mathematical problems, does so and it doesn't come out her way. Rather than face the facts and accept the outcome she develops a tortured illogical rationale for why she in fact has the right answers and everyone else is wrong. This is accompanied by an unshakable stubbornness and continuing unwillingness to back down. This may not seem like a big problem in the huge sweep and the overall scheme of things, but what if that youngster is allowed to get away with her distortion of reality, grows up, goes to Yale and after a long eventful life becomes a Presidential candidate for the nomination from her party. What if at the end of a long grueling primary battle she encounters election results in the form of mathematical numbers that have not gone her way.

This time, if she is allowed to get her way,  she becomes President and has final oversight of the Federal Budget.