Every now and then, I come up with something ridiculous that works far better than it has any right to. Such was the case a few months ago, when I was teaching my seventh-graders how to use cross-multiplication to find equivalent ratios. I asked a kid to tell me the first step in a problem similar to the one I’d just shown the students, and the response was a blank stare. (Seventh-graders, as it turns out, have the memory of a goldfish and the attention span of a fruit fly. I am still learning workarounds for this.)
“You cross-multiply by multiplying the bottom of one fraction by the top of the other,” I said, making a sort of “X” gesture with my arms and pointing to show which numbers should be multiplied. As I spoke, the gesture reminded me of something, so I closed my hands and added, “Looks kind of like the Wakanda forever salute. That’s how we’re going to remember it.”
The kids rolled their eyes and laughed at their hopelessly white, middle-aged math teacher mimicking T’Challa’s famous salute, and then we tried some more problems. Whenever somebody got stuck, I said, “You need the strength of the Black Panther to solve this one.”
About half the kids now mutter, “Wakanda forever!” while they’re working out equivalent-ratio problems.
I imagine Shuri would approve.
Foolish Wand-Waving 