Eleven

Peris is a 50-something grandmother who comes to class occasionally. I like her because she tries very hard and can laugh at herself. On Thursday, we were doing math and Janet called me over and said Peris needed to learn how to count to 10 and could I help her. I didn’t think it would be too difficult because women who are illiterate tend to be able to memorize things quite quickly.

Peris grasped the numbers 1-5 quickly, 6-7-8 were beyond her abilities though. Whenever she couldn’t remember a number she would say eleven. I showed her where the number 11 would go if we kept counting and said eleven aa (aa means no). But no matter what strategy I tried the go-to number was eleven. We made it through 1-10 once but I think that was a fluke, because the next time we tried we got 9 instead of 7 and 11 instead of 9. That was after 30 minutes of practice.

She did however always remember the number 10, which I guess goes to show it doesn’t really make any difference how you get to 10 as long as you get there. I’m sure when we begin to count up to 20, eleven will still give us problems but at least it will be in the ballpark.