Saturday, September 15, 2007

Sleep Deprivation and the Modern Teacher

1. We were supposed to calculate (for a grant) how much extra time we spent after school last year tutoring students. So I figured on average I spent 3 extra hours per week at about 30 weeks that year. Wow, I calculated, I spent 900 hours tutoring! I rock (though apparently not at multiplying 3x30).

2. As the week goes on I get more and more sleep deprived (that's my excuse preamble for the following). I also daily wear my wedding ring that I never take off, and many other silver rings that I take off at night and put back on daily. So on Friday I get to work, and to my classroom, and I instantly feel and see that I have all my rings on except my wedding ring (of almost 13 years). Gasp! Oh no! Did I get too skinny (cough) and it slipped off on my way from the car to my classroom? I obsessed about it all day. That night, I went home and saw that it was in my ring tray. I don't even remember taking it off. I don't remember realizing it wasn't on all morning. I don't remember seeing it and sifting around it in the morning while I'm putting on my other rings.

3. I had this lesson that was working really well on symmetry of functions (even/odd/neither) on Friday (remember, in my defense, I'm TIRED), and I divided my overhead slide into 3 rows and would graph, describe, give the rule, and give an example for each type before moving on to the next type. I was running out of room on my slide, so I slid (tee hee) it over to the left and continued writing on the overhead glass to finish up the EVEN example. I then used my spritzer bottle and rag to clean the glass before moving on to the ODD example. I got through the graph, the description, the rule, slid the slide over, and then looked above at my EVEN example, and realized that, Oh no!, I forgot to give an example for the EVEN function, and here I am on the ODD example. So I start walking them through the steps of the EVEN example, and I'm patiently waiting for them to continue, and a student asks, "didn't we just do this?". Oh my.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:41 AM

    You have to read this. And no, I wasn't tired.

    http://jd2718.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/Ice breaker: Your teacher's an idiot. No, really/

    I've been picking on my freshmen in good humor, and picking on myself, and laughing harder at myself. It's all about your "I'm so nervous" kid. I figure if class is about laughing and joking then we also work harder and faster, and feel better. We'll see if that really works.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:54 PM

    That IS funny. It must be that we're juggling so many other things in our mind that we're sometimes on autopilot. This, I choose to believe.

    Ms. Cookie

    ReplyDelete