Ode To D-Minus

Roy Wenzl: When I went to Valley Center High School on Friday to see how the math department organized games to teach Pi, I told the organizing teacher, Kristen Joyal, that in high school, I was one of the algebra or geometry students that she dreads: When the teacher tried to teach Pi, I yawned, then slipped Huckleberry Finn out of my backpack and read it under my desktop.

I never learned Pi. I flirted with a D-minus grade in every math class.

Sometimes back in Washington High School, instead of studying parabolas or circles or Pi, and instead of studying Huck, I scribbled stories and poetry.

"So before I drove up here," I told her, "I wrote you a Pi poem."