The Mathematical Challenge (Essay: School)


All Scottish school-children from around P6 and up will know 'The Mathematical Challenge', I should think. I would be overjoyed if they didn't, because I had nothing but painful experiences with 'The Challenge'. It haunted me right up until my semi-final school year, cropping up every year - under the guise of 'National Government Research Project' - to inform me that I was an inferior human. Although I'm sure that the Government never intended for young school-children to feel that they were being intellectually segregated for the purposes of class-distinction, which I trust was not the Master Plan, it struck a '1984' chord within me when the results of those tests floated on to this 'The National Government', whatever it was, never to be heard from again.

However, despite the test-papers' etherie (yes, I made that word up), 'The National Government' did return to us, in spirit, possessing the school-teacher in order to relay to us that some of us were awarded Certificates (Gold, Silver, Bronze), each according to our merits. I never saw any of those certificates, so I don't know what was written on them; but having 'The National Government' indirectly infer that you were unworthy of their certificates, every year, was quite a shame. Still, though.

So, why did I write this? Don't worry, it's not because I feel bitter towards 'The National Government', or 'The Mathematical Challenge'; I never did feel bitter about it, nor did I feel upset in any way. There is just one thing, which I have always felt about THE CHALLENGE; something that I may well always feel. What is that thing? It's just one word: why?

Why, 'The Mathematical Challenge'? All my life, if there were one mystery in life which confounded me, it wasn't this one; however, this was still a mystery in its own right, and one that I never found out. There is something exciting and mystical about mysteries like this, which is not surprising, given that the word contains the 'myst' from mystical, and the 'e' from exciting. Where, just where, did those test-papers go? What was done to them? What was 'The Challenge'? Was it to be the superior person? To answer questions for no reason? What was the right answer to those questions, and why did they never tell us? Did the award certificates contain an access code for that space-shuttle that's geared to blast off to the moon with the world's most superior people in case of the Earth's destruction? Perhaps 'The National Government' never existed, and 'The Mathematical Challenge' was a gateway to another plane of reality, which was passed down the never-ending generations of school-pupils by some group of famous scientists (like Roger Moore), with the hope that, one day, one of them might unlock its impermeable bounds.

Amidst all of this conjecture, I would suggest that perhaps 'The Mathematical Challenge' isn't as indecipherable as that last paragraph might have made it seem. I personally took the assumption that 'The National Government' was taking statistics to help with making decisions on how to structure the national school curriculum. However.

Don't lose the mystery.  ¶ 5:43 pm