Who thought summer school was a good idea? Especially in Massachusetts, where the humidity can take your breath away, never mind frizz up your hair.

I loved teaching in one of the oldest buildings on the beautiful campus of Henley College. Today, however, with the temperature hovering around ninety-five degrees, I’d have been willing to give up the magnificent collegiate architecture of Benjamin Franklin Hall for a sleek, modern, air-conditioned building.

But I had only myself to blame for the fact that I was teaching on a wretched Thursday morning in July. I’d persuaded the dean to fund a learning center in Franklin, the building that housed Henley’s mathematics and science departments.

I was the go-to person for a program that provided tutoring sessions, online problem sets, videos, and classes in special topics for students at every level of achievement in math. The program, plus a twice-a-week seminar in applied statistics, kept me in a hot, stuffy classroom for many more hours than I liked.

By noon today I’d spent three hours using math games to help incoming freshmen who had declared themselves victims of math anxiety. I waved a sheaf of practice sets in front of my face, creating a warm breeze, and declared the session on graphing calculators over.