Pi

Last month, Ben checked out a book of random math trivia from the school library.  He came home one day muttering.  I asked him what he was talking about and he handed me the book.  It was open to a page about pi. "Look, I memorized it, Mom."  OK.  He proceeded to rattle off some 37 digits of pi.  Wow, that's a good memory.  Jeff was even more astonished.

The next day at school, others were not so impressed.  They proceeded to tell him that he was dumb, probably wouldn't finish high school.  Why?  Because Einstein knew pi and he never finished high school.  Really?  We did our parental damage control and Jeff challenged him to memorize 50 digits.  They made a card to fit in his  wallet, so he could practice.  If you're going to make one card, you may as well make 8 and laminate a few to prevent that dog eared look.  In no time at all, several other kids were memorizing pi, writing pi on their dirty minivans and spouting digits to anyone who would listen.  It may just be a fad, but the trend really took off-- I hope the high school graduation rate doesn't suffer.