I was standing at the blackboard in front of the class. I&#x27;ve always been flaky on multiplication tables for some reason, and doing arithmetic in my head isn&#x27;t my strongest suit.<p>That said I excelled in math throughout high school and college. It just goes to show that elementary math really has no bearing on the type of mindset one may have for &quot;more complex&quot;, logic based math and computation.<p>Trust me -- since that experience of being humiliated in front of the best students in the math department at my college, I haven&#x27;t forgotten what 9 times 7 is.