I blogged over at Crossway on Biblical literacy
Seventh grade was the year the crying began. With the oldest child, we were caught a little off guard—school had never caused this level of upset before. But with the introduction of pre-algebra, all four children adopted a nightly ritual of frustration and tears. Jeff and I developed a mantra, borrowed from a favorite baseball movie: “There is no crying in math.”1 It became the opening salvo in a nightly tutorial in which we would untangle the confusion that had wrapped itself around the day’s homework assignment, reassuring the children that they had what it took to complete the work and gently guiding them to patiently press on through the material.