My pushback against remote learning

“Your head’s inflated and equations popping out your ears,” said Julius, handing me his painstakingly hand-drawn portrait. Not just me — he had one for all 28 of us in the class. We joked he was “the poor man’s Picasso.”

But come second period, and Julius just shut off. He moved to the back of the class and kept to himself. The spark that had lit up his eyes was blunted. It was algebra. I’d race through a problem and rush to Julius in a bid to convince him it was worth solving. But no, he was drawing “A Starry Night.” I plead, “An Euler is as beautiful as a Van Gogh; a Gauss no more alluring than a Monet.” But Julius just shakes his head.