Up until the fourth grade I had not experienced any serious educational failures or setbacks, maybe the occasional warning from a teacher or wrong answer on my “mad minute” worksheet, certainly nothing like the great long division fiasco of 2002. I was always a hardworking student, and with enough effort I was always successful completing my school work, but when I was first introduced to long division I came to a screeching hault. There was something about this multiple step process that was baffling to me. It was like metaphorical gears in my brains were stuck, instead of turning smoke would just come out of my ears. At first I tried my hardest and I failed. I scrawled the letters “DMSCB” on every paper I owned in a desperate attempt to