We have a love/hate relationship with math in our house. Much like our fickleness about the weather, we love math when it is fine, and hate it when it is gray and cold. Recently, I have discovered the joy of the order of mathematics and how it is reflected in my daily life. When a concept so concrete, as; “get[ting] x by itself to solve for x” is what I am consistently repeating when my student looks overwhelmed by 3x + 7=22, it becomes the same song I am humming while I wash the dishes, or fold the laundry. This is the task at hand; the first step to the next part of the day. “What is the first thing we do?...Get x by itself”. “What is the first thing I do?...Wash the spoons.” Mathematics is overwhelming if you open up to the first page, and then immediately start leafing through the rest of the book and wonder how you will survive page 394. The dishes are overwhelming if you keep surveying the entire mess in the kitchen from floor to ceiling.
Order is not the fantastical personification of Captain Von Trapp (I think he is judged too harshly for using a whistle in a house the size of Disneyland), rather it is a gift to us, to not borrow trouble, but to faithfully do the next thing.