Professional Development

What a useful day (except that I didn't get any grading done or prep and now have a fun weekend of work ahead of me, but that's another story). At our inservice, we had 3 morning sessions where we were able to pick and choose between various presentations.

I first went to a dyslexia talk. The woman was very informative and passionate about this (her daughter was not diagnosed as dyslexic until high school). I learned about myths and symptoms and modifications. The next talk was about scaffolding. I learned about graphic organizers and how I could use them in math. The third talk was about meeting the needs of and closing the achievement gap between black kids and "other" kids. It was informative and started the conversation. There were no concrete solutions or tactics (well, maybe there were, but they were more hand-wavy vague-ish), but it was productive, none-the-less, because it raised my awareness up a level. So ... a nice way to end the work week. That and the great live music and margaritas and tex mex food downtown after work.

Sleepy

I'll be happier next year when I don't have to get up at 3:00am (or my guilt/body/procrastination forces me up) to make 3 quizzes for my 3 preps in one day. ... Or really now, who am I fooling. This is how it always seems to be. BUT, tres exciting, because I don't have to "be on" today for the little kiddies, and SECOND, tomorrow is an inservice day, so guess who's going out to breakfast?

One Liner Plus ...

In calculus we started talking about antiderivatives yesterday. One student said that it sounded like a vaccine and asked hopefully, "is that something that will make derivatives go away?"

After school I was writing a pass for a student for Wednesday morning, and I was working out what the date would be, so I started counting from Friday, whose date I knew by heart. In my mind I picture the 7 days of the week sort of making an elliptical loop with Saturday and Sunday at the bottom, so in the air, I was kind of pointing to the days and counting forward until I got to Wednesday. The student asked what I was doing, so I explained and then asked how he pictured the days of the week (straight line). That reminded me of my periodically-remembered quest to see if anyone else sees the days of the week in their mind as being in a loop or does everyone see them (if they do at all) in a straight line.

Dividends

Last year I taught my algebra 2 class a song to remind them of how to work with fractions. (I know, how sad is that that it's needed). This year, my cell-phone-cat-pee girl who was horrible with fractions last year is sitting there working away on some trigonometry problem, finding common denominators and adding things with (gasp) "pi" like the best of them and NOT EVEN REFERRING TO HER CALCULATOR.

WooHoo.

Oh My

Dinner with our neighbors/friends turned out okay. Just one prejudiced comment during the whole evening. I happened to mention this reality show where people with "different" (read: non rich/white/cookie-cutter) lifestyles were in a bid to move in free and clear into this uppy-up neighborhood. I never watched it, but I knew of it because I knew of one of the contestants - a great person. So our neighbor was mentioning that, yea, he'd heard of the show (before I mentioned, I think, that I knew of one contestant). He said, "yea, .... bla bla bla ... the scum of the earth ..." refering to the variety of people. You know, people with tattoos, non white people, gay people, etc. Oh my. I mentioned that one of the people was my friend, and conversation moved to other topics. But really.

BUT. The main occurrence of the evening was that fact that the wife has in about a month really deteriorated with rheumatoid arthritis. We're talking a young, 40ish healthy, fit person here, and she can't even use her thumbs, and all her joints are swollen, and she has difficulty getting up after sitting for long periods of time. The last time I saw her, she was "normal", and now she's stiff and in pain. Oh my. Apparently, this is a disease in which your body attacks itself. How horrible. .... And another friend has just had surgery for cancer. .... How cliche, but you really do start to thank your lucky stars that you're (so far?) healthy. Maybe this is what starts to happen after you're in your 40's, health becomes a main topic on your mind and of your conversation ..... let's see, weather, health, .... what's next, talk of "regularity"?

This & That

Sheesh. Can't believe the school year is 1/3 over. I had a grading frenzy on Friday, so that I wouldn't have a pile (extra) of work to do on the weekend. Go Me. I finished just in time to turn everything back. Now all I have to concentrate on is "antiderivatives" and how to start them next week.

My husband whisked me away for a stay at a nearby B&B for our anniversary. How fun is THAT to do something outside of your normal routine. What I like about the B&Bs are all the interesting people you meet that you'd probably never cross paths with. The other 2 couples there were from a Texas town that was greatly affected by one of the last hurricanes, so we heard stories about how they're putting stuff back together there. One gentleman was also a court reporter, and that was fascinating to hear the specifics of his job.

Today our "racist" friends are coming over for dinner. I've had this battle in my head about how to deal ... my husband suggested inviting them over, and I balked, but.... I guess I'd be perfectly fine not talking to them again, I feel that strongly about it. But then my husband likes them, and they're mostly okay except for their viewpoints on certain issues. Do you keep steering the conversation away from such topics? Do you say, "stop being so racist."? Do you make faces at them about the crazy things they say? Blach. Obviously, I must be wrong and most of the US's problems are due to illegal immigrants sucking up all our resources and ruining our schools and the poor people using up all our health care money. Blach. Blach. Blach. Yoga training to the rescue .... or denial .... "go to your happy place. go to your happy place."

Hormones

Sheesh. Everything seemed to be sex related on Thursday. Gee, what a surprise, high school boys thinking/talking about sex. It started out with the inevitable "69" shout out when I asked for a number. Then it evolved into someone talking about their "weenus" ? but it was supposed to be some "other" part of their body .... then during my lunch duty I get to watch a young couple practically glued together against a wall that I had to pry apart....then someone was talking about this plastic toy that consisted of 2 small baseballs that had a red light that made them glow (???), so then they had to keep saying, "my red balls, my 2 red balls, my small red balls". OKAY, we get the reference. THEN after school with the students I coach for a math contest ..... one boy pipes up with, "Mr. ____ told us that chocolate stimulates (hmph) the same part of the brain as when you're having sex". We had a little discussion about social skills and mixed company.

OKAY. Enough all ready, little kiddies. Put your pants on and do some math.

Chubby Little Eyeballs

Whenever I'm trying to get the students to focus on a place on the board or on a worksheet or in the book or whatever (and to see if they're processing what I'm saying), I say, "put your chubby little fingers on ...." or "put your studly little fingers on ... " or for a variation, "put your chubby little eyeballs on ...".

Well. When I bought candy for our trick-or-treaters, I couldn't resist the inch-in-diameter balls of chocolate that were wrapped in foil made to look like eyeballs. Now, we had hardly any trick or treaters, so, I got to take them to school and I handed out "chubby little eyeballs". That was fun.

Also yesterday after school, a student was getting help on some trigonometry, and then we started talking about Pythagorean Triples. I told him of the ones I knew - (3,4,5) (5,12,13) (7,24,25) (8,15,17) and then showed him the trick on how I remember the first 3 ..... in that for those, the last 2 numbers add up to the square of the first number, so you just think of (say) 5, and its square (25) and then basically you halve 25 and get 12 and 13. THEN, he asked, does that work for every odd number (since it worked for 3, 5, and 7). I said that I didn't know but I didn't think so. Then we tried some out, and by golly it works .... now I have a slew of triples on hand: (9, 40,41) (11, 60, 61) (13, 84, 85) ... etc. Who knew?

Math! What's not to love?

Politics in the Math Classroom

One of my kids piped up with, "hey miss, did you know that the *horrible hate group* is coming here to rally against *an upcoming proposition*?" Which led to an animated discussion about what proposition he was talking about and such. I didn't want to squelch the discussion, but we had 10 minutes left or so, and I had to finish showing them a particular process. So I said, "we should all be tolerant of other people (except hate groups, of course), whether or not they are like us."

We were getting through our process, and I'm hearing a bit of rumbling & talking about tolerance. Then, after one such discussion, a kid pipes up with, "miss, R___ is lactose-intolerant."

Family

Hypothetically speaking, say you had a mother to whom you have not spoken for 5 or so years. This hypothetical mother has an alcohol problem, has forged family names to get illicit credit cards, has forged an ex-husband's name on an insurance form so that her current boyfriend/husband can use the insurance, has lied to get money that she never intends to repay, has her mother and one sister and father die within years of each other. Has a wee bit o' kleptomania. Now this mother has had an operation and at the same time had a stroke and heart attack. You know this person loves you in her own way, and yet what can you say to this person? Now, your hypothetical father and current mother's husband are trying to get you to call her and talk to her. Now if this REALLY happened it would probably be TMI. Good thing it's all hypothetical. Happy Halloween.

Free Day

You know, as in, Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh can we have a free day? My other teachers ...... it's Friday ........... it's halloween ................ I'm tired .................... there's a game tonight ................. you never let us have .....................you're going to make us work today? ........................ waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I tell them that every day is a free day. I never charge them for teaching them. (and yet they STILL don't find that amusing). This was basically how it was all day on Friday. You'd think I was torturing them by making them work. I did get validation, though, at the end of the day. One girl piped up with, "whew. I've been bored all day. We didn't do anything in my other classes (student comments about other teachers/classes should always be taken with a grain of salt), so I'm glad we're doing something here." ......... Thank You.

I remember a LONG time ago during my first year of teaching, my supervisor would make the comment that the kids need a reason to be there (you know, last day before a holiday .... half days ... etc). I mean if no teacher is doing anything productive, then why SHOULD the students come to school that day? I also remember thinking (in my naive, first-year way) sheesh, what a hard-nose (or other part of the body), why not give the kids a little fun from all the structured, rigid scheduling we have every other day. ..... Now I've changed my tune.

Reading in Math

We're doing a short unit on parametric equations in precalculus, and yesterday I borrowed an idea from Foerster (how creative IS this person?) and was having them figure out the equations to draw all sorts of ice cream cones, cylinders, hemispheres, etc. I gave a little prep talk, and then handed them a sheet that had a great example and a definition of ellipse equations, and set them on their merry ways.

Well. How many times did I have questions and such about how to work the equation? How many times did I explain and walk them through how to read the definition and interpret what things meant/did? How quickly did I change my prep talk for my second (last & favorite) period?

So I think I'll be doing more of this where they have to learn how to read a math text. How scary would it be for them to graduate and be deficient in this way.

ew ...

My treat tonight for working late and missing tap dancing and going to a school event (which turned out to be fun) was to go to my favorite burrito place and get take-out on my way home. Hmmm.

After a brief wait, my "food preparer" asked me what I wanted. As I was answering, I spied something in her nose. Not wanting to stare (why?) I glanced at and away several time to confirm that there was a boogy halfway on the way out of her nose (still in there, though). Okay, what do you do? Do you say, "I'm sorry, you can't prepare my burrito because I'm afraid I'll get extra ingredients I don't want"? Do you pass this person off to the next unsuspecting soul and wait for the next (cleaner nosed) helper? No, of course not, you keep placing your order and periodically checking that the boogy was still there hanging on for dear life at the end of the food process (whew! safe). But then WAIT. She had to turn around to a back counter to wrap it up (the burrito, not the boogy). So then I had to check her nose again .... where did it go? was it still there? argh, I couldn't get a positive i.d.

And to top it off, she told the cashier that I had a larger size than I ordered, so I had to pay more for the boogy experience .... maybe it was for the performance art. THEN when I came home and ate the burrito ... towards the end, something tasted funny. No. Not that. but more like a vegetable gone bad.

Ewwww. I decided some wine therapy was in order (and it will hopefully kill any germs I've acquired).

Getting Along

My cell-phone-cat-pee-snotty-comment girl was actually blatantly putting out an effort today so much so that she had to call me over and ask a question about a process they were practicing and then actually do it. Then after school, she came to make up a quiz, and I asked her what happened on her other quiz that she bombed. I assumed she just didn't study and was waiting for the re-test (blach! re-tests! don't get me started). But no; she SAID she studied the formulas but not how to apply them. She didn't practice with problems. Hmm.

Her cohort in class who is basically an attention grabber in all sorts of ways, tried one of his tricks of putting his head down on the desk. Usually I'm on him (everyone) to keep their heads up. But with him, I have to physically go over and nudge him up. What a fun game. I finally realized a while ago what he was doing .... "Hey, I'm the center of attention, and I'll do all sorts of things to make you & the class whirl around my orbit". Well, this time (as much as it galled me) I let him keep his head down and didn't make one mention of it but kept watch while I proceeded with the lesson. Everyone else was working. Whew. How peaceful that made it. ... I wonder what will happen today.

Cheating! Cheating?

On Friday I gave a quiz, and when the students were done, they walked up their quizzes to the front of the room. As one boy was handing it in, I happened to look at his arm, and big as anything, he had some of the formulas scrawled on his forearm (sp?). It was so big and blatant, and he saw I was there and he wasn't acting suspiciously, but I had to comment on it anyway. His rejoinder was that it was there to study all day. Hmmm. He's a smart kid, and he really didn't need to cheat, and I'm apt to believe him, but what a poor decision .... or maybe it never crossed his mind to cheat, so he wouldn't even think it was suspicious. Trust me, I've had cheaters before, and you can sort of spot their "shiftiness" and "guiltiness" in their actions.

It reminds me of when I was a freshman in biology, and our teacher had given us previous tests to study from during class, and we were to turn them in at the end of class. I ditzed out and took the tests home and didn't even realize it until class the next day, so then I went up to the teacher (thinking nothing of it) and handed them to him and said I accidentally took them home. Well. You should have seen the look on his face, it all but screamed, "CHEATER". His words were basically to that effect, too. I still remember it to this day. For the rest of the year, I shut down in his class. ....

I don't want this to happen with this kid, so I guess I should have a discussion with him.

Air Show Thoughts

On Saturday we went to an airshow that benefits a worthy charity. It was a beautiful day, and I lost some of my indoor-teacher pallor. One of the wild things was this 23-year-old girl who was a wing walker. Apparently, there are only 5 in the world (?). Sheesh, I'd pee my pants doing that, but it was sure fun to watch her get up onto the top of the plane. On take-off (a biplane) she was lying down on the crisscrossed wires connecting the wings. Then after they were in the air, she walked up to the top wing and strapped herself onto an upright bar and was there while the pilot was looping and rolling and doing all sorts of things. Ach. Scared for her, but fun to watch.

Now of course, I couldn't just go and enjoy myself, I had to bring precalculus quizzes to grade - or "tuizzes" as I call them because I never give tests, and they are always asking if it's a test or a quiz (all mine have about the same point value), so I said they're tuizzes. Blach. Some of the kids I had last year or for 2 years in a row who used to just get by on sitting in class and absorbing, are now really struggling. They got so used to not having to study for math, that now they've met their match. Some stepped up to the plate, but others seem to be stuck in their lazy ways. I keep trying to encourage them to study, and I mention that precal is not like what they've had before, but .... to no avail apparently, based on how some are doing on the quiz.

I guess that's a life lesson. Hopefully, they'll learn it at some point. I guess I wouldn't be doing them any favors by easing up on them. They have to learn the hard way .... but it's still painful to see them fail/flail. .... Then that got me to start thinking about how adults/parents probably do more harm than good by taking care of all the obstacles (in various forms) for their kids. The kids then think that *poof* someone else will make all the bad stuff go away and they can just coast and have fun.

Time Warp

What is it lately that my age keeps coming up in classes? I was goofing around on Thursday when a student asked, "raise it up please" refering to the transparency on the overhead, and I made a goofy gesture of pumping my palms in the air hip-hoppy style (?), "please don't do that again" they all laughed (so I did it twice more). But that made me think of "The Gong Show", and I asked them if they knew of it (seeing as all the old shows keep coming back). No, it's too "old" for them.

Then in another class someone was talking about concerts, and I asked which they were going to. I don't know why I asked, I don't know any of the current artists. Then I started listing the concerts I'd been to, and they were joking with me by naming old bands. Hmph, those old bands were bands when I was in high school.

Then! My (favorite) last period class of the day tried to break out into "happy birthday" while we were discussing the homework, and I shushed them, thinking they were singing to a student, and I didn't want the distraction at that time. Then a while later in that class, there was a knock at the door, and a former student comes in bearing a birthday card for me. (It wasn't my birthday). Someone had apparently text-messaged her, and she got me a card ???? Made my day, but she was embarrassed that it was only a joke (on who/whom?).

I guess (know) I'm at least twice as old as the kids, and maybe even older than most of their parents. Ew. I could even have children myself that are their age or older. Ew. Who's old?

Things my students teach me

Various random snippets of conversation came up today ... all courtesy of my students.

* I burned my tongue. You know how when you burn something, you can blow on it to cool it off and make it feel better? You can't do it with/to your tongue (my suggestion of sticking the tongue out and blowing with/through the nose was not appreciated).

* I saw on TV this study they did where math problems were projected on the ceiling and first students had pillows under their heads, and then they had pillows under their feet, and they learned better with the pillows under their feet. I hate these school desks, so I wish we could learn like that.

(immediately following that conversation)

* I saw on TV that students learn better if they have cookies, so I think you should bring us cookies (my retort was that that just goes to show that they shouldn't believe everything they hear).

* You know that e-mail I sent you last night, miss, about freaking out because I couldn't do the math problems? Argh! I did one problem for over an hour, and I kept getting different answers, so I just needed to vent. I'm better now.

Sweeties

Did I mention I loved my last period class of the day? It's filled with great people. On Monday towards the end of class I'm walking around to help them with word problems, and I (half) jokingly ask, "did anyone bring me cookies? I'm starving." Now I said this because 1. I was starving, and 2. they're always asking me in a variety of ways to bring them cookies. One of my favorite students pipes up with, "I have oreos. Do you want some oreos?" ... then I felt bad/rude and replied that I was just joking, but I thanked her for being so nice.

When class was over, she walked up to me and said that she left something for me on my desk. I looked over, and there was a baggy containing a bunch of oreos. ... and that's one of the reasons she's one of my favorite students.

Chipotle

(okay, nothing to do with the post, but I like the word: chi-POt-le).

On the plus side, it wasn't a full moon, on the minus side, the kids were lethargic today ... mostly. I did have some lively encounters. While I was manning the halls between classes, one little kid on his way to class sees me and calls out, "I haven't been to TMC for a week, miss" (our tardy place for kiddies where they sit) .... He'd been in there a couple of days when I had my weeklong duty a while back, and I started talking with him (I don't remember about what), but I'm sure I somehow brought up the fact that he needs to be in class or he'll end up repeating it or some such thing. I guess he remembered me, and wanted to sing his praises to someone. Yay.

Then my funny/goofy last period class, we're all milling by the door before class starts: me to shut it and lock it promptly when the bell rings, and 4 of them just to gab with me and each other. So we have about a minute before the last bell will ring, and as some kids walk in, they sort of question why those 4 are hanging out by the door in a line. I look at them and say, "they're the welcoming committee.". Then they start to get into it. All the remaining people that were coming into the class were greeted and their hands shaked and clapped for and cheered for. We all started laughing. A nice start to class.

Whew

Okay, Friday was MUCH better than stinky Thursday. It started off in 1st period while we were doing the ambiguous case of the Law of Sines, and one girl while practicing and getting the right answers bursts out with, "I love this stuff". Then I was talking to another child, and she mentioned how hungry she was because of various things and that they didn't have food in the house (said all matter of factly), after giving her some pumpkin seeds, I don't know how we got on the subject of her FFA class, but then we started chuckling and saying that when she goes to class to care for her animal, she'll have these thought bubbles, "heeeyyyyyy, you're looking pretty tasty", and go out back and have some "food". There also was a girl that raised her hand and showed us all a visual way to remember which side of the triangle can "swing" to create your second triangle. Yay for students contributing and teaching me new methods.

Calculus went MUCH better. I got a great book in the mail and flipped through it and modified one of the activities to use with my kids, and they all had light bulbs over their heads. (Yay for Lin McMullin). Then in my last classes, I had some good application problems for them to work on while I called them back one at a time to discuss their current grades. I got a chance to put in a plug for doing homework and boosting their will to succeed (we'll see) and a chance to talk to kids I hardly ever talk to (you know how there are the kids that are always participating in one way or the other, and then there are the quiet ones).

After school I had some kids staying (Friday! I missed yoga!), and at the end, when I'm walking one kid out, I asked her if she was going to do anything fun on the weekend. She said that no, she'd probably just be arguing with her sister. Turns out they'll be arguing about public vs. private education. Hmmmm. I told her to put in a plug for our side (go public.).

Angst

Thursday was a crappy day generally in the teaching department. Is it an October thing? Is it a teaching a course for the first year thing? No. It happened in about 3 out of 5 classes yesterday. In one class a student sits there tearing up paper ... it's noisy, I'm talking, I'm annoyed and pseudo-nicely tell them to stop. In another class (same seat ... hmmmmm, bad seat karma) a kid sits there with a TI83 and just taps at a key. Repetitively. ... it's noisy, I'm talking, I'm annoyed and pseudo-nicely tell them to stop. In a 3rd class after class is over, I see that a student has used white out to write a message on the desktop. In one of those same classes, one snotty child walks in at the start of class, right in front of me and sighs/groans loudly, as in, "oh my GOD, I have to sit here for a whole period". ... So that just set the tone for most of my day.

But then I had good interactions with other kids. One says she has a new nickname for me, Nerdilocks. Others stopped and talked with me in the halls. Yet others stopped after class and had to tell me their latest joke (hmmm, something about gas ... used in both senses).

Chance Encounters

Wednesday was one of those "plus" days of being a teacher. I was in a good mood, well-rested, the "tester" kiddies didn't annoy me, and I had good/interesting encounters with a variety of students.

We did the PSAT as a school-wide, 3 period event. I proctored 2 different rooms with students I did not know. It's so interesting to see wariness on the face of the students when they see a new adult, so distrusting. Now these are kids that may have reason to be distrusting, so maybe their past experience has taught them to be cautious. However, I smiled and didn't bark at them, and things went okay. ...

Then I see a kid in the halls who should be in class AND he's on his cell phone. I have a 50/50 chance that those type of encounters will go okay. I jokingly said, "wow, a cell phone out during school hours. That's weird." He grinned and put it away. I asked where he should be, and he said class. His eyes looked funny, so I asked him if he was on something. He started to tell me that he was very tired since he didn't get to sleep until 4:30am. We discussed health and such ...

I also had 2 great kids stay after school. One girl has not been turning in her homework and had come in for help. We had a nice long conversation about procrastinating and goals and such ... all initiated by her.

So ... one of those smile-making days.

Morning Moods...

Practically every morning I feel a low-grade dread going to work. I love my job, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. I think it's honorable work that betters society. The kids are funny for the most part, and I get at least one laugh because of them daily. It's rush rush rush all day, but that makes the day go by faster.

So. I guess it boils down to 2 things. One, I never think I'm quite doing the best I possibly could. It's always, "oh, you could have taught it that way", "ooh, that's more engaging and grabs their attention and makes things stick", "ach, you could have handled THAT better". And second, you never quite know what quirky teenagery things (besides the full moon) will conspire to make various kids change the whole mood of the class/day/encounter.

I guess I have to give myself a break and know I'm doing the best I could be doing at the moment, and just the fact that I reflect and change things up is positive. But that's an analytic knowledge ... I'm sure I'll still be feeling that low-grade dread/worry/knot almost every morning.

Break from Routine

I LOVED having Friday off to go to a math workshop ... and then driving with a great "book on CD" for 3 hours to have a relaxing evening alone (me time) with terrific Vietnamese food (I would have licked the plate if it was appropriate) and then ANOTHER 3 hour workshop on Saturday to be followed by cool mystery book store shopping and a trip home (again with the hilarious book, Hard Eight, on CD). Today (Monday) we had inservice all day. I guess that's a Texas thing where the kiddies get off on a day early in each month, and we all get professionally developed.

It was meeting, meeting, meeting all day (with a mix of useful and such), so I still have papers to grade, but I beat the traffic, and here I am. Procrastinating.

The workshops on Friday and Saturday were useful really only because I was with other calculus teachers and through some persistent questions, got some good ideas/suggestions for one of my main concerns: how do you get the kids to go beyond just regurgitation of steps to solve a problem and to the state where they can use those "steps" to solve less straightforward problems without whining (too much).

I'd just given what I thought was a straightforward test, and they had bombed. They don't know that they don't know the material in some cases, so they come in all cocky and self assured. In other cases they don't realize that they DO know how to solve these "hard" problems, they just have to step back and think and realize what they know.

Some suggestions: 1. group quizzes structured so that everyone participates and learns and is held accountable. 2. a preview of all possible questions (challenging and not) to work through and study, and then they come into the room and blindly pick a question out of a hat to get graded on. 3. give 3 problems and they can pick the 2 to solve on a quiz. 4. BIG time curving so that they are not penalized if they at least try and make some progress. ...

Duh

Another human nature post ... or a human *something* post. For 2 years in our copy room, the hole punch has been neatly tucked away in the corner butted up against the wall and squeezed between a big copy machine and the paper cutter. A wee bit of a tight squeeze, but, whatever, it worked, it was there, it made holes.

Today I went in to the workroom, and the hole punch was moved just 3 feet more into the room, to the other side of the paper cutter and microwave, and AHHHHHHH why in the heck did we not think of this sooner? SPACE. Is it that you just take what you're given? Is it that it's not really your property, so where it is is where it is? Is it that we don't see it as a problem to be fixed, but just one more little annoyance in our daily existence to bear, and bear it we do?

I don't know.

... but the "funny" post note is that later when I went back to use it again and was happily punching away, someone came in to use that space for an official purpose and politely said they'd just move the hole punch back into the squished corner.

Tap Dancing Lessons

How much do I love my Wednesday tap dancing class. AND there are lessons I can learn/relearn/reitereate for my own teaching practice. She taught us a small portion of a dance. We practiced. She helped out struggling students. We were then confident that we knew the material. She taught us a bit more of the dance. We practiced that portion. We practiced the 2 portions together. She assessed and fixed subtle misconceptions. We experienced success. We learned a bit more. Practice. Put it all together. Praise.

I'm thinking that I have to carry this over to my calculus class. I have this underlying rush rush rush feeling because I HAVE to cover certain topics in a certain amount of time because it'll be on the AP exam in early MAY. Rush. Rush. Rush. I feel "guilty" if I slow down and reteach or have a day I let them practice because, oh my goodness, I'm running out of time. It's only October. I think I need a reality check. They need to have it in smaller chunks, practice, feel confident, before I move on.

In other news, how excited am I that I get to go to a math workshop on Friday, and then I'm "treating" myself by signing up for yet aNOther math conference 3 hours away this Saturday ... so I reserved a bed and breakfast for Friday night, and have already checked out my book on CD for the drive and am SO looking forward to my mini math nerd vacation. PLUS there's the best mystery book store EVER in the city I'm going to (to which I'm going, ahem).

The Deciding Point

Since I've taught different levels of math in high school, I've seen various students come to the realization every year at various grade levels that just sitting in class and paying attention won't make the grade. The kids I've taught are pretty bright, and in the past for most of them, they've been smart enough to just do class work and not study for quizzes and actually do pretty well (A's and B's). Of course some of them always do work and study for tests and come in for extra help if they need it, but then there are the lazy ones that get by on their brains.

The bad part is that all of a sudden, that doesn't cut it. Now if they want to get A's and B's they actually have to put out an effort. Gasp. ... I'm seeing that this year in precalculus with a former A/B student. Now, he's not turning in work, he's not studying for tests, he's barely squeaking by with a C. He's not stepping up to the plate yet, though. I'm crossing my fingers for him because I've seen changes in others in the past where they have the work ethic enough to realize that they have to change their sorry ways.

On a totally unrelated note, we did hand stands in yoga on Sunday. Too exciting. If someone had told me ahead of time that that's what I would be doing, I wouldn't have believed them. I've shied away from them in the past because I just picture my arms buckling, cracking my head/back/neck/... BUT. What good teaching this person did. He started us off slow. We practiced. He upped the bar. We practiced. And all this time, he did not say where it was leading. THEN. He mentioned the "H" word. We all looked at each other in class. Right. But, sure enough, we attempted and did (against the wall, of course). WooHoo. How exhilarating. He always gave us an out and let us stay at any of the previous levels. ... Of couse, then I started relating it to teaching. I should force (nicely like he did) the students to do hard things, because when they attempt it (and not necessarily 100% successfully, but at least with progress), then they'll be impressed with themselves.

Squeaky Annoying Wheels

What is it about the one or two kids that change the whole mood of a class? What is it about a teacher that allows the mood to be changed by focusing on their bad behavior? What is it about human nature that you KNOW this is irrational, and yet it happens over and over again.

I should reread Fred Jones' book, "Tools for Teaching" to get some inspiration to deal with these boogers.

On a positive note. I LOVE my last period class of the day. What a sunny way to end the teaching day. They're so funny and positive and they work hard and work with me and even laugh at my jokes.

Math Party

I frequently joke with my kids and start statements with, "at your next math party ... ". As in:
* at your next math party, you can use the word "asymptote"
* at your next math party, you can impress the babes by being able to work fractions
* at your next math party, you'll get dates by proving a pythagorean identity.

Well, last night my husband and I went to a math party, one given by a math teacher at our school. Teachers were there, spouses and s.o.s were there. I didn't realize we did this, but about an hour into the party, we started talking math. Now, I'm talking math puzzles or thought provokers. I mean who WOULDN'T be interested in such things. One of the sig. others starts chuckling, and his s.o. (a math teacher) says that he had actually not wanted to come to the party because he thought that all we would be doing is talking about math.

Then later, I'm sitting in another grouping, my husband, 2 retired math teacher / friends, and me. Okay, okay, the talk found its way to MATH. So sue us. My poor husband (though he's a computer geek himself), meandered away on the excuse of refilling his drink and never came back. Whew! free to talk math without apology.

Who's a nerd?

Movies

When I was a kid and in high school and even throughout college I ALWAYS went to the movies. I was a movie freak. Loved movies. In fact, one spring break, my goal was to see 10 movies during break. "Going out" movies. Theater movies. Not rental movies. I did it, and I have the frame of movie stubs to prove it.

These days, I can't tell you the last movie I went out to see. This saddens me. I'm guessing it's because I go to sleep at 10pm, get up at 5:30, get home from school at 7:00pm (if I haven't gone to yoga or tap) or 8:00ish if I have, dinner, slight relaxation and then bed. The weekends seem so short and are filled with school work and chores and naps and just being quiet after a noisy week, that I hoard my time and seem to "resent" possibly wasting 2-3 hours of it on a potentially bad movie when I could have been reading or "surfing" or doing puzzles or such. ... What an old fart I've become. I need to break out of this mold and do something totally different. ... Or not :).

Quote I read, and believe, and will put up in my class:
"Do your best. Even when no one is watching."

Crunk...

Yes, serving duties has its positive side. Again today I had discussions that may never have come up for me otherwise. One kid was telling me about his friend that goes to jail on the weekends and is let out during the week to go to school. The kid is apparently 20 and still in high school ... (robbing houses as a sideline, apparently). Hmmmmm, which high school? ... I didn't ask.

Another kid asked me if I was one of those "crunk" teachers. Pleading ignorance, I got the "low down" on this word ..... you know, it could mean a LOT of things, ... crazy and drunk, ... fun, .... OR if someone does you wrong, you've been "crunked".

On an even MORE positive side, I don't have to serve my duty tomorrow. WooHoo.

Duty Reprieve

The same people I was ragging about yesterday for the duty we share .... we talked and decided that 4-5 teachers doing the duty is overkill, so we're going to split it up in the future and do "part" weeks each and have 2 teachers per duty. ... a win-win situation. I still walked around today and talked with the kids. They're mostly all a different type of kid than I see regularly. A large majority of these "late" kids are the ones not interested in school, waiting to drop out (or at least talking it up), maybe doing drugs, bla bla bla. Of course there are the ones that just get caught up and can't quite make it to class on time this ONCE.

I talked to one kid today who was telling me about this fight he was in and was suspended for for 3 days. I talked with another that was talking about his math class and what he likes and doesn't like about it. And then I had the following conversation with the "jolly" math teacher, a litterbug student, and myself (courtesy of something I saw on a talk show once ... Oprah?).

This kid accidently pushes off this paper onto the ground in front of us 2 teachers. I say, "thanks for coming to pick it up and throw it away." and I wait. Then he asks me if I'll pick it up. No. Then he asks jolly man if he'll pick it up. Jolly teachers cups his hand to his ear and says, "what" .... they go through this a couple of times until the student says, "please". Then jolly teacher picks up the paper and hands it to him. I make a face. "Well, he said please." .... So I turn to the kid and say, "I like your necklace. Can I please have it?" ... "I said 'please' ". ... I was polite.

If your request is off the wall, just saying please doesn't make it okay to ask. ...

Pulling Your Weight

Once a month we have a week long duty supervising kids who were late to class (locked out and forced to sit all period silently in the cafeteria). There are about 4-5 teachers per period. We are supposed to walk around and make sure the kids are not on their cell phones, no heads down, no talking, etc. We're supposed to keep each other on track in case a teacher doesn't show up or doesn't do their work. ... My group makes me cranky. I barely know them, they're all guys, the coaches just sit there and write out their plays or whatever it is they do. The negative science teacher just stands in one place and says, "if the security guy is not going to do anything, I'm not.", the other math teacher just jovially stands by cranky math teacher and chats with him. I'm the only one walking around (or even one of the few showing up). Who ARE these people?

I do NOT feel comfortable saying something to them. What am I to say? ... I tried joking with them about walking around and "working", but to no avail. ... I'm trying to be all yoga about it and make my peace with it. ... Apparently, I'm not THERE yet. Then I feel like, why should I worry about what they're doing or not doing. I'll just do my job to the best of my ability, and it does make the period go faster to walk around instead of just standing there. Deeeeeeep breaths. This is teaching me patience and acceptance and restraint in kicking of shins.

1/6 done ... 5/6 to go

Grades were due today for our 1st 6 weeks. Of course, SOMEONE (no names mentioned), left the grade completion to the last minute (seconds actually), but ... I got them done. Tons of papers to grade and enter and formats to send and export and ...... DONE. Whew.

On a side note. My neck has been aching/sore every morning for a while now, and yesterday I just clued in that MAYBE it's my pillow, so my husband and I went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and plunked down a pretty penny and bought one of those "curvy" "foam-ish" "heat-sensitive" type of pillows, and wouldn't you know it, my neck feels great this morning. Small treats. AND I got to go out to dinner tonight (a TexMex delicious burrito). AND I got to use my new "frog" and "cat" stamps to mark homeworks "graded". .... A nice way to start the week.

Oh yea, and a student told me he saw the following tee-shirt: "5/4 ('5 out of 4') people don't know how to work with fractions" ... or something like that.

Homecoming Mums

Is it just me? Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in the South ... or is it just Texas? Last week was our homecoming week, and on Friday, the homecoming game. Well, so then all the girls and some of the guys are wearing these humongo "mum" flower dangly jingly streamer-y school-color-y things on their arms and shirts and heads .... ew. What's the attraction?

..... But I guess these are famous last words because in two incidents in the past (new VW bug, and the "interesting" school color for our local university), first I was horrified by the ugliness ..... and then, I don't know, I'm thinking there's something misted into the air, some kind of brainwashing product, where slowly over time I find myself first saying, "it's not SO bad", to then eventually, after enough chemicals have been introduced into my brain via the highly secret mist, "well I guess it looks okay".

Pretty soon in a few years or so, you'll see me at Michael's buying supplies for my own mum atrocity.

Student Interactions...

One of my favorite past students ("miss! I'm going to tell my mom you touched me inappropriately." ... when my arm accidently brushed her chest 2 years ago) had to come up to me at lunch today and tell me that I was in her dream last night. She was trying to get out of another math teacher's class and transfered to mine and then the other math teacher started yelling at her and then Hurricane Rita started affecting our school ....... I'm guessing that she was having a disrupted sleep because her room is by the front door, and she told me that she had to keep getting up to answer it at night because relatives from Houston kept arriving. ... She's so funny. She also sold (her mom told her to) on e-bay some concert tickets she wasn't able to use but got at a cheap price. And in response to my question of how much profit she made and was she going to donate it to charity, she said, "yes, the _(her name)_ fund". Hmmm.

Then there's this kid who I've never had as a student, but I see him daily at lunch on my 15 minute duty. He practically always strikes up a conversation with me in a matter of fact voice .... for example: "I'm DYING for a cigarette" .... which led to a long discussion on health ... or "do you like my pants? I fashioned them myself" (studs and reworked bell bottoms) .... or today's, "the reason I wasn't here yesterday was because I skipped 3 periods." (then goes on to tell me ... again matter-of-factly ... that he was mad at his foster mom who was mad at him because he called his real mom who he's not supposed to have contact with ....... Oh my. Well, at the end of the day, when I was tutoring a bazillion kids, this same kid comes by and is doing a fund raiser for/with his class and wanted to sell me cookie dough. Apparently he's a good salesman, because he had a ton of others listed on there and mentioned that his class sponsor told him he's in the lead for sales. Go him. Hopefully, he won't turn out to be too much of a damaged human when he grows up.

Pesky Little Buggers

Ach! ... On a positive note, I'm learning *a little* not to hold grudges. On another positive note, I'm learning patience. On yet a 3rd positive note, I'm so sleepy, that my reactions are slowed down, so I am not as p.o.ed as I could be.

I have a student in my precal class who I had last year in algebra 2. He can frustrate the bejesus out of me in class .... he'll pout and not do work when certain things aren't going his way. He does things for effect or reaction. He's a wee bit smarmy and "brown nosey". And yet ..... he's interested in getting a good grade. He comes in after school and is intelligent and makes an effort to understand the material. He has a good sense of humor. He is a generally good natured kid (except for when he's a booger).

He comes into class today late with a note. Obviously something had happened. We'd already gotten started graphing and working with the calculators, so I asked him twice to get out his supplies and work. Nothing. I walked over to him and asked if something was wrong (it was). I also stated that he couldn't just sit there, he had to do something or get out. He chose to leave class. Ick. ...... And yet, here he comes after school to get tutoring for a makeup quiz, all polite and hard-working.

Deep breaths. I'm SLOWLY learning not to see people as black and white ..... good or bad ..... I say slowly, because I'm still trying to make peace with the fact that our neighbor friends we've known for 2 years have slowly revealed themselves to be prejudice against various segments of the population, and if there's one thing that does not sit well with me, it's that. ..... And yet they have a lot of good in them ..... but I can't see myself (yet?) sitting down to a meal with them and carrying on a conversation when I know this fact about them. .... Still processing this scenario.

Seating Arrangements

On Tuesday I asked my kids 5 questions on the overhead, and gave them a few minutes to write their responses before I collected them:

1. Do you have any seating preferences (near/away from the air conditioner) , front/back, and why? List 2 people you can WORK with effectively.

2. How is class going for you so far and why and what do I need to know?

3. What could you do to improve your grade?

4. How can I help you?

5. Tell me at least one good thing that's happening in your life right now.

The answers are always illuminating. It's always confirmed that the people I've seen dazing off in the back row or chatting with their neighbors are struggling and they actually say not to put them with so and so and not to put them in the back row. Others admit that they should be studying more. Invariably I get the "less homework" answer .... (I only give about 10 math problems a night or so ..... am I unreasonable? I don't THINK so). ... Then I find out that some poor kiddies answer #5 with NOTHING good is going on right now. I'm having a tough time in my personal life, and that's why I'm failing ...

It always helps to remind me that they're people and not math machines and makes sure I don't make any "seating chart faux pas" like ignoring the hard-working girl's request that "I'd like to be in the back seat of a "4 pod" because I don't like anyone behind me ...

Squeaky Shoe ... Really

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I get hot easily. It could be perimenopause, it could be just my make up ... who knows. And because such, I wear tank tops (work appropriate ... knits) most every day ... or sleeveless dresses, etc. Well, today was the start of homecoming week, and we have goofy dress up days, and today was one of the days I could actually participate .... it was "Maui Monday", so I wore a white tank top under one of my husband's Hawaiian shirts .... Ach! 2 layers .... imagine the heat eminating off me. .... I also wore birkenstocks .... those and crocs are my shoes of choice.

So.

Here comes the last period of the day, and I'm hot (and not in an egotistical sort of way). I feel the heat and moisture. I'm walking back and forth between the overhead and the screen to make a point, and an air bubble is CAPTURED between my foot and shoe, and IT SQUEAKED. So, not wanting anyone to think I .... you know .... I said, "oh! my shoe squeaked." .... Then I realized that was probably not the optimal thing to say to convey the actual situation because I can just hear the kids' thought bubbles, "riiiiiiiiight. squeaky shoe. good phrase."

Friday Funny

Okay, so it took me this long to actually LOOK at the stuff surrounding the posting area and realize that some of it could be fun/useful/overused in the near future.

One of the funny things that happened on Friday. I was having my precalculus class explore various angles on their graphing calculators to show that, yes, cosx*cosx + sinx*sinx = 1. We proved it together on paper, and then I had them enter various angles on the calculator. So I would start off saying and entering on the overhead calculator and having them enter on their calculators at the same time, "cosine of ...... what's your favorite angle?" and basically the first person that said something (36, 11, .... the inevitable 69 (ignored)) we'd all put that number in and lo and behold,
cos(13)*cos(13) + sin(13)*sin(13) ... hit enter .... and 1 magically appears. We did it a few times and also graphed and such. Well. One time, I again started off with, "cosine of ...... " and someone pipes up with, "your mama". Totally random and cause for giggles.

Black Humor and Sleep Deprivation

I can now in my infinite wisdom (from repeated experience) recognize symptoms of my own sleep deprivation and bite my tongue before I'm overly snarky to students just being kids. For the last couple of days, I've been subsisting on a lack of sleep (welcome to a teacher's world) because I am blessed with tons of meetings and tons of tutoring and tons of materials to make up for each day.

So. One of the symptoms is going off into that glazed-eye stare and fantasizing about COMPLETELY inappropriate ways to deal with rude teenagers (not in class, but say oh .... lunch line cutters / liars / hall wanderers / litterbugs ...) and all the while in my fantasy having an evil grin on my face. mwa ha ha ha, take that, you inappropriate child!

Someone needs some sleep.

Okay, you also know you've taught in high school for too long, when practically any innocent thing you say has some sexual connotation (sp?). While I'm in class and trying to get kids not to yell out answers .... so everyone has a chance to think and respond, and I can get a better sense of how many and who knows what .... we were doing something with graphs, and they had to name which OTHER quadrant that sine was positive in. So I was having them hold fingers up close to their chests signifying 2, 3, or 4. I said, "okay, put your fingers on your chest" ... pause .... tee hee hee hee "okay, don't finger your chest, but put your fingers NEAR your chest to ...." . Oh my.

Impressions

Once again, I have to say that I love being on the student side of a teacher/student dynamic because it allows me to see things in a different light, and then I can translate that into my teaching and see what's what.

For example, I take tap dancing once a week, and I have since January of this year. From January to about May we had one of the directors of the school teaching our adult class, and from May until just tonight we had a hodge podge of teachers (all good). Well tonight the original teacher came back from her hiatus.

Now I'm sitting in the hallway, and she passes by me several times, and she doesn't acknowledge me like she has some of the other students. Now from a teacher's standpoint I was reflecting on what I do to my students during passing periods and right before class starts. I'll say hello to everyone I can, but I know that if I get caught up in a conversation with one kid, then I basically ignore a large portion of students that come into my class. Also, it's easier to be chatty and friendly to the students that have made an overture to you, so you (I) tend to acknowledge them more.

Then tonight I got to thinking (as a tap student .... in my heart even though I know it's not so in my brain), "hey" she doesn't even know I exist ... I'm not as "important" to her as the other students ... I don't feel so good. .... Then I flipped back to teacher mode, and I can just pinpoint the students in various classes that I've hardly acknowledged at all (in their minds ... I'm guessing). You know, you have 21,000 things going on at once, and you want to start class and get down to business, and the niceties get pushed by the wayside unless someone else initiates it. ... How many kiddies are sitting in my class and thinking what I thought tonight?

Note to self, have a personal conversation with at least 2 new kids in each class that you hardly ever say boo to.

Teenagers

SOMETIMES I feel "sorry" for our little kiddies. Imagine you have to go through an 8 period day, 50 minute classes, 8 times your brain has to shift gears. 8 times you're "shushed" and made to think. 8 times you really, really, REALLY want to just chat or hang out with your friends and can't. 5 days a week, 36 weeks a year. I'm tired just thinking about it. We give them 6 minute passing periods. They have a wee bit of chance to yap in the hallways. ... I just remember for a few of our summer in-services, we were put through a similar day (only I think out periods were a bit shorter). Oh man did I start clock-watching after about the 3rd period.

Sometimes it just helps to refresh my memory that these are little people, and not math machines. Sometimes I let them talk just for 1 extra minute or so in class. Not often, but sometimes.

Education Hierarchies

I went to a meeting after school today for all AP teachers. We met with 2 uppy-ups in our district. Oh my. The whole meeting they're all, "tell us what you need. tell us what you need." you know, to raise AP exam scores and make the program more successful. Well, the funny thing is that to every suggestion we had, the answer was either, "oh, we can't get that", or "it's coming" (and that has apparently been the answer for 2 - 3 years. Then one of the people had run some statistical analysis on questions they had asked AP students RIGHT after they had taken the exam. On some of the low scores that reflected on our school, I wondered out loud if we could further probe the students why they answered that way, to get a better feel on how to rectify the situation. The statistics man just would not get it. He kept thinking that I was dismissing the questions and trying to justify why the score shouldn't have been low. All I wanted was to further clarify what the problem was. So .... I guess I don't know the upshot of the meeting, and I don't know how helpful the "central office" people were. Hmmmm.

In other funny news. I'm trying to get my precalculus students to memorize (relearn) the special right triangle ratios, so I'm holding a contest and they have to come up to the front of the room and on 2 projected triangles, they are timed on how long it takes them to put down the correct numbers. .... They were a bit "heckle-crazy" the other day, so we talked about manners, and practiced, and then I said, "okay, who wants to come up here and test their mettle?". They thought I was making up words and wouldn't believe me that "mettle" was a word because I'm a math teacher. Google to the rescue. Hmph. Mettle, mettle, mettle. Goofy little kiddies.

Strizzie .... Strusy .... Strizzy

Way back when we were living in New Jersey (go underdog state!), we happened upon some local dialect where people would use "yous" to talk to more than one person. Like, "how're yous doing?", etc. Okay, first it grates on the ears, but then you kind of get into the groove of "yous". Well, also NJ had a big high tech component to it with lots of companies hiring such people, NEC, Bell Labs, ... , so I thought, wouldn't it be great to create a new slogan, toss it around a LOT, and then pretty soon I'd be hearing it right back and thinking, "yup, I made that up". So my saying was, "New Jersey. Yous're Friendly." ... to combine the two ... now people might not think of NJ/east coast people as friendly, but we loved our neighbors and basically the first week we had moved there, we were invited to parties by people who barely knew us, but knew we were new to town, etc. .... Well, I never got the phrase tossed back at me, and I never saw it on a t-shirt ... so I'm throwing it out once again, and crossing my fingers.

I bring this up because I thought I'd make up a new word and one day (cough cough) we'll see it in the dictionary. You know how nowadays people are all about, "hi. how are you?", "oh, busy", or "oh, stressed out". .... Well, the word is "Strizzie" (spelling still up for grabs) to combine the two concepts: stressed and busy. So the dictionary would look like:

Strizzie: adj. stressed and busy. usage: "how are you?", "oh, you know, strizzie".

Now I'll just sit back and wait. mwah ha ha ha. .... I've used it in one class for one day so far, ... I think I need to up the usage. ... an aside: I'm actually not that strizzie today even though I still have to make up some practice worksheets (ala pizzazz sheets) for my calculus class, and some fraction practice (oh my) for my regular precal class (okay, if pi radians are over here, where is pi/4 radians? 3 pi/4 radians? .... um student fingers wildly roving around the circle and playing "pin the radian on the circle", here? NO)

Parents

Oh my. My dad's visiting. My dad that is a really good cook and worked many years in a restaurant in varying capacities and even owned a small restaurant at one time. My dad is Persian. We went to a Persian restaurant that he requested from remembering it from the last time he visited. Oh. My. ... On the plus side, I'm not as mortified as I used to be. Why is that? Am I older and wiser? Or older and more tired? Or do I just know that it's no reflection on me ... his bad behavior. Or that he's just visiting for a while and will be gone soon.

So he plops all his silverware into the water glass and leaves them there until his food arrives. To clean them. Obviously in a subtle fashion, clinking them loudly and ceremoniously. He orders food and when the Persian owner comes by, .... right after my dad says in an aside to my husband that the meat was tough ... and asks how the food is, my dad says in a smarmy fake laughy way, "oh, I'm not one to complain". When the belly dancer comes by and then leaves to dance for other patrons, my dad is mentioning that she's not a REAL belly dancer. Besides the fact that she's dancing. In a belly dancing sort of way with her belly dancing get up and belly dancing music. When the Persian ice cream comes for dessert, he grills the American waiter about the contents, and then proceeds to say, oh, then it's not "REAL" persian ice cream. Oh. My. ... Is it just me? Or is that just all too embarrassing for him. Or just plain sad.

Assumptions

I've learned through trial and error never to assume a kid is putting his head down in class for no good reason. So now I either just quickly interrupt my flow of math discussion with a general call out of "heads up please" or a joking "hey, if I can't sleep, then you can't" or "you're making me jealous". The other day, I walked over to a kid who had his head down and gently asked him if he got enough sleep last night. He said no, he had to "close" at work and didn't get to bed until 3am! I asked if they knew he was in high school and isn't there a law against that. He said that he's 18 and he doesn't live with his parents and basically he needs to close or they wouldn't hire him. Blach. Go figure the poor child is sleepy during the day. What's wrong in the general scheme of things where poor high school kiddies have to go through this (and it's not an isolated case in my school). Today I chatted with the kid and wondered why he didn't live with his parents. He mentioned something about his mom not being interested in him and she had him when she was young and he hasn't talked to her in years. Oh. My. Goodness. ....

New Days

That's one great thing about teaching. Even the kids that get on your LAST nerve the day before basically get a do over the next day. Every day is a chance to start again. Now I'm not saying that I forget the crappy behavior (not doing work, chatting too much, being a nudge), but I guess for the sake of everyone's sanity, we put it aside and try again today. For the most part I have great kids that will work in class and are generally respectful.

Now that I'm typing this, I just remembered that as I was checking my attendance taking program today, I see that I'll have a new student entering one of my upper level math classes soon. The same girl from last year that was one of my biggest sleep deprivers. Ms. CellPhone. Argh. Now I have seen her in the hallways, and she is in my advisory, and she was in the SAT prep class I taught this summer, and ALL those times, outside of my class, she was pleasant. Oops, her real name is Ms. CellPhoneCatPee (due to what happened during finals last year, tee hee). Okay, now here is a girl that is just not that into math, and I'm wondering why she's putting herself through the pain of taking precalculus preAP if she doesn't have to. ... The plot thickens, and I guess I'll find out soon enough.

My Wednesday

Today:

Get up at 5:30 and do cardio on the treadmill. Shower & get ready for school. Take care of the morning duties for the dog we're sitting. Eat breakfast. Plan in my head what's going on in classes today. Get on the road by 6:45am - ish. Drive to school and map out the day and listen to NPR and Old Rock and the Spanish station in a ping-pong fashion to: get news, relax, learn my 2nd language.

Get to school by 7:30 ish. Quickly make the copies I need to make. Brush my teeth and hair. Work through 1/10th of the pile of shtuff that's accumulating like nobody's business on my desk. Promise to get to the rest soon. Regard the funky smell in my classroom & make plan #103 of how to stave it off. Baking Soda? Plants? Open door? Fumigation?

Help students that come at 8:00am for tutoring and multitask putting up the homework on the board for 1st period and setting up and thinking about how to teach sine and cosine to my regular precalculus class.

First period at 9:00am. Teach sine and cosine on the unit circle. Wonder why I'm insulted that they comment that "this is EASY." Second period off. Rush to get ready for 3rd period by making copies and entering grades and grabbing some caffeine and handing back hwk on their desks and putting up the homework on the hwk board.

Oh yea. 3rd period assembly. Herd the kiddies into the gym. Stand duty in the rafters. Ineffectually try to shush the rude kids that continually talk while the poor presenter is talking away. Get embarrassed for our school and the kids' behavior. Pick up trash in the rafters while waiting for the kiddies to herd out the door.

4th period 15 minute lunch duty. Shake my head at the rush of kiddies that actually get out of the long line to rush outside to watch a fight (same kids that would probably go to a hanging in the old days to watch). Wolf down my lunch. Curse myself for eating something with garlic and onions and quickly pop some gum so I don't make any kids pass out. Enter some grades.

5th period. Low key day because I don't want to get too far ahead of my 3rd period class that missed today for assembly. Realize that some students still don't know how to find the slope of a line given the line on a graph. Reteach politely.

6th period. Help a student and rush to get ready and figure out how I'll present stuff for 7th and 8th periods. 7th and 8th, pat myself on the back because I think I found an effective way of having them memorize the ratios (rememorize) of the 30-60-90 and the 45-45-90 triangles.

After school, bounce between 10 students that have stayed after either to retest or do test corrections or get help. Shoo them off and rush out the door to tap dancing.

Rush to the store after tap to pick up supplies for my dad's visit tomorrow, and to get a perscription refilled. Curse the insurance company because what cost $15 last month now costs $40/month. Wonder how much vasectomies cost.

Eat dinner at 8:45. Walk the dog that we're sitting, clean the toilets and pick up around the house. Look at the clock, and it's 10:10, 10 minutes past my bed time and I still have about 20 minutes of things to do.

Think about a majorly caffeinated day tomorrow.

Deeeeeeeeep Breath.

Yet Another One

This is my 3rd year teaching at this school, and it's the 3rd year I have *at least* one pregnant person or a person with a baby in one of my classes. Crap. And she's one of my favorite students (not that I have favorites, of course :)). Her mom wanted her to have an abortion, she didn't want to, so she's moved out. Oh my. What hardships are going to lie ahead for this child. ... It's going to be pretty soon, that NOT being pregnant is going to be the odd thing to behold here.

In other news, my dad is coming to visit for the weekend. Hopefully, I'll find time to clean the "ring around the toilets" and vacuum and dust and such. Food for the fridge? ... I think he has a new girlfriend, since he doesn't seem to be so depressed when I call him on the phone. It's always, "M. this", and "M. that", and "I'm over at M.'s place". ..... Hopefully, this will last and make him happy.

After the First Time Around

Sheesh. I'm teaching precalculus for the 2nd year at my current school, and it just never ceases to amaze me the difference between how I deliver the material the 1st time and subsequent times. For example, last year after teaching the trigonometry topics, I could see that I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be. I (people?) don't know the types of issues the kids will get hung up on or what they'll find more confusing than you think it should be. Then time rushes on and you have to move on to a new topic, and there it is. ... Then the next time around when you teach it and you look at your notes from last year and you read, "they DID NOT get this" , or "they had troubles with this aspect", or "make sure you try that idea you read about on ...", and then you try it out, and wham! they get it! they really get it! ... I love when that happens.

So .... in a sense, I'm a wee bit sorry for my calculus students this year, because I'm sure I'll have a much better grasp of how much to stress certain things and how to approach other things, and how much time to spend on yet other things NEXT YEAR. Ce la vie (sp?).

On a yoga note: I used to teach aerobics, and sometimes you'd get subs and sometimes you'd be a sub, and I really disliked when people were all set in their ways and crabby because they had a sub, and I'd think, "get over it and try something new for one week". Well. We had a sub last week for "Hatha Flow". Now the flow classes I've been to have been more physically challenging than the regular hatha classes, and yes the sweat was flowing and yes after a while you're all whiny and thinking it's hard and it's hard to do the tree pose when your sweaty self is all slippery, BUT. Then you're all pleased with yourself because you've persevered (sp?) through something challenging. So. Our sub was more of the "hatha" variety last week during the "flow" class, and look at me getting all "ew. sub" on her. Blach on me.

On a yoga/teaching note: so then I think that as much as the students at school may whine about something being hard, I think that we have to stand our ground and say to them, "yes it's hard, but that doesn't mean you can't do it" because if they step up to the plate and push through and do it, they'll be proud of themselves. So. Note to self. Don't make things too easy because where's the fun in that?

Early Morning Wake Up Calls

Blach. My husband came home from a business trip sick, and guess what he brought me as a present? Yes, scratchy throat, stuffed nose... Oh well, it's been worse, and hopefully this one is on its way out. ... I've also been getting up at 3:30am for the last few days after going to sleep at 10pm. Who's sleepy and stuffed up during the day? Me! Me!

On a positive note, I didn't get cussed out once on Wednesday. By anyone. In fact, no surly looks even. High school kiddies are great. Who knew?

During my TMC duty (all during one of my prep periods for 1 week a month. this week.) I've been meeting the most interesting characters that I'd otherwise not have interaction with. Big thuggy looking guys and little thuggy looking guys, late to class, so that's why they're in there all period. Apparently, the shirt of choice these days, other than the red tee-shirts, is any black tee-shirt with some picture of Al Pacino as "Scarface". I can't tell you how many I've seen. Shockingly, all on thuggy looking boys. Hmmmm. Well anyway. One little guy on Tuesday nicely recapped the whole movie for me because I haven't seen it. Then on Wednesday I had a long, pleasant conversation with two larger guys. Just chatting. They were very polite and goofy. Who knew?

Okay, it's 4:40am, and I don't have to exercise and shower and get ready for school until 5:30, so I'd better do some work to alleviate later scurry-ing as today BOTH my prep periods are gone due to duty and a faculty meeting. ... But, yay, Bunco tonight.

#*%$^#@!

That was what one charming child said to me today. My lunch duty for the first six weeks is 15 minutes in the cafeteria to make sure no one cuts in line. I had this same duty for 18 weeks 2 years ago. It's okay for the most part. You get to meet kids you'd never see otherwise. You get to observe crazy teenage behavior outside of the classroom.

And kids (being the "humans" that they are) are set in their ways and always go to the same line and sit in the same place, so you get to know faces. Two years ago, I had the most trouble with a group of 3 boys. They were always trying to cut or steal. I wouldn't let them get away with it, but it was still a pain in the butt to monitor.

This year hasn't been too bad so far - just some lippy behavior & some half-hearted attempt at cutting. Today. Blach. One of my "cherubs" from that 2-years-ago experience, sort of wanders around, and then cuts in front of a heap of students. He's now right at the front of the line with a friend. I "nicely" several times try to get him to the back of the line, but the booger is not moving. I tell the lunch person not to serve him and go get an AP. From what I see, nothing happened to the kid, but I don't think he got food. Later in the courtyard as I'm walking back to my class, I hear, yelled across the way, "F--- that B----". Very charming. Oh my.

And to top it off, this week I have TMC duty .... for kiddies who are tardy. We lock them out (lovely), and they have to go to the cafeteria and sit and be quiet and "pay their dues". Little miss uppity with an attitude also gave me grief today. .... but enough said about that.

In other news, let's end with something funny. I printed out a grade sheet today that lists the kids by their id number and has their grades and missing assignments and such on it. Before I passed it around, I made mention of the fact that they should just look at their scores and quickly pass it to the next person. I hammed it up about what not to do what with loudly yelling, "who has a 0?" or "wow! who is number #####". I ended with just do your business and move on (pantomiming quickly skimming the page and passing it on). "Do your business and move on." .... It went fine for 3 classes, and then my last class of the day, I guess we collectively all had the same thought .... because I then had to say, "well, not THAT business. not in class." Tee Hee.

More Mature?

I remember fondly my excitement before school started of teaching "older" kids and not having any classroom management issues. Can I just say that my 2nd to last class of the day - precalculus preAP - has the most chatty, goofy kids in there. I've tried seat changes. I've tried talking privately with the students. I've done the stern look thing. Tomorrow, (today!) heads will roll (figuratively, of course). ... Is duct tape a good option?

Family

Super cheesy, but I just got home from a LONG day at school/yoga/football game, and I have to say that I'm feelin' the love for my school and all the "family" it encompasses. It's nice to be on my 3rd year of teaching there, so now I see kids in the hall, and I can smile and make small chit chat with many of them. I was also at our first football game of the year (did anyone ever mention that football is BIG in Texas?), and I also saw many friendly warm faces. I like most of the teachers I work with, and now that I got "surly girl" out of my 1st period class, and "goofy boy" decided to drop that same class, things are grooving. .... Of course .... I know it's a rollercoaster ride of how each day goes, but right now, I'm at the top and feeling the breeze.

Funny things that happened this week:
1. We were walking down the hall to get our math textbooks, and I reminded them to walk like quiet bunnies (or dead bunnies who are also quiet). I see this one boy and girl linking arms and walking together. I forget what I said, but the boy answered me, "I'm a male escort".

2. Same period, and now that I think about it, same boy. On another day, the bell has rung, and we're about to get started and everyone's in their seat, and I have the door propped open (funky room smell), and all of a sudden the boy says, "ow you twisted my nipple" to some other kid. I turn around and say (now I'm at the front of the room near the door), "okay, no talk of nipples in class." At that moment, the whole class, me included, see a person walking past our door .... our principal. We all start giggling. ... She either did NOT hear us, or she chose not to hear us.

Guaging ability level

Yesterday after school our statistics teacher mentioned a conversation she overheard from 2 students about how my calculus class so far is easy and a review of precalculus. I agree with the "review of precal" statement. In our precalculus strand, we spend quality time on limits and even start a pretty thorough discussion on derivatives. Now in calculus, the first 10 days or so is spent on limits. Then we move on to derivatives which I believe only the first part will be a review. Now granted, this is only a total of about 15 or so days overlap .... 3 weeks .... but it got me to rethink things.

My initial intention at the start of the year, was to thoroughly hit limits, and then to throw AP exam type questions at them. ... I had to wait because the questions I found involved stuff we hadn't gotten to yet. Well, so today, I gave a brief discussion on our current limit topic: continuity and one-sided limits, and then gave them 5 really challenging problems to start on and finish for homework. I'm curious to see what I get back tomorrow. Based on some of the performance in class, I'm guessing that we'll have to discuss what are acceptable answers. It looked like lots of students had that "deer in the headlights" look.

I always find it fascinating that you can do the best job that you are capable of the first year you teach a subject, ... I mean, you really, seriously put thought into how you will teach something, and then after you've road-tested it, you see what problems the kids have, or you have a brainstorm in class about how better or different you could have done it, and you make notes for next year. I'm thinking that the 3rd year you teach a subject is when you really start to get your groove going.

Spare the kiddies

Well, I caved in, bought "fabulash" mascara, and started slapping the ol' makeup on again today for school. I even had a comment from a kiddie: "OH! THAT'S what was different about you. You weren't wearing makeup." Oh my goodness, now if I could just get them to pay as much attention to the math aspect of things, we'd be great.

In other news, I made a "funny" today in our precal class where we were working out a homework problem that involved them dealing with something like (x + 3)^2 ... some/many students frequently rush through something that's written in this form and say that it equals x*x + 9. So I said, yes that's a COMMON mistake, and what does squaring something really mean? and they correctly answer "multiplying something by itself", and then I write down (x + 3)(x+3) and to their collective "aaaahhh"s I said, "Hah! FOILED again.". ... Okay, it was funny in class.

Weekend Treats

It sure was nice being able to sleep past 3:30am for the last 2 weekend days AND take naps in the middle of the day. I think I'm almost all caught up and ready to "de-sleep" this upcoming week. I also had lunch (after yoga) with S. today, who started at my same high school the same year I did, and left before this year to go to a charter school for various reasons. She's teaching math and science to middle schoolers, and it sounds like she's already making an impact. Oh my goodness, more power to the people who work with little people. I do not think I could handle that age range with their bouyant (sp?) energy and little hormones and tattling and such. Ooh, and the "no time to go to the bathroom" issue? Blach. BUT. Her classes are all less than 18 students. Yum. And it sounds like she gets to do some cool science experiments.

I brought work home (the dreaded 7 day work week), and gosh golly, it sure is hard to get motivated to do it. ... Okay, here I go.

Whew! To the 1st Week

I feel like I should be belting out the "Love Story" song .... "Where do I begin ....hmmm hmmm hmmm HMMM hmmm...." (except the cats would be howling and there would be boots and rotten tomatoes thrown).

I have now just officially finished my first week of school, and shockingly enough I'M TIRED. In fact I am so tired that I kept yawning (quietly) in yoga class after school. I swear if she had turned out the lights and had a soothing shavasana, I would have been one of those people that started snoring.

First week was good, but I don't have my timing groove yet. I have 3 math preps and all week I was scrambling to finish up 1st week craziness in addition to figuring out the pacing for my "regular" class and putting out my best effort for my AP Calculus class and so on and on and on. So I've been good about going to bed at 10pm, but then that whacky 3:30am ... 4:00am eyes-wide-open thing started happening. Then I figured that since I was up, I could find "pockets of time" to finish up lesson plans and correct papers and cut and paste for assignments and such. ... But enough complaining.

I love my classes. In fact there are some students that I'll have now had for 3 years, and they're so cute and happy. Who says teenagers are surly and ill-mannered? ... Okay, I run into some of those. But my heart is warmed by all the hugs and hellos I've been getting. ... Now I'm CHOOSING to interpret the following in a "good" way, not an "oh my god you look old" way.

An aside first. All summer I didn't wear makeup, and I sort of got used to it, and then when I put some on during our 1st inservice day, it felt so fake and gloppy and wrong. Now we're just talking mascara and eyeliner here. So then I started thinking about going all year without wearing it. Sure, I look okay now, what with my piddly little tan, but talk to me during my pasty white days come October. Anyhow. I also stopped wearing my glasses ... my eye sight is not that bad, and I can make do. It's been so nice just to dress up for school and then not have to "do" makeup (especially now since I'm exercising at 5:30am .... BFL) and am super sweaty even AFTER my shower .... that I sometimes have to wait to get dressed (TMI, sorry) until I cool down.

So. Today (Friday) between my last 2 classes of the day, one of my former students who I had for 2 years, but don't have this year, comes to say hi. "Can I give you a hug miss?". Well, sure ... I ask her what that's all about, and she said that "everyone" was mentioning how I looked all tired and stressed out and just wasn't myself and she was worried about me and didn't want me to die. .... Okay I'm only 40 here. Do I look THAT crappy without the makeup? Was she just being genuinely concerned? Or was that some subtle (?) hint to get with the program and stop scaring the kiddies and slap on that face paint already? I'll have to sleep on it (a LOT) this weekend.

Other than that, my regular class .... hmmmm ... I have to figure out what will work with them. They seem to be of a wide range of abilities and attitudes and I know it's only been 4 days with them, but I don't want to lose them. It's a regular precalculus class, and they don't even need it for graduation, so more power to them for signing up. I will keep having to adjust until I figure out what amount of examples will work and make them comfortable enough to do homework. They are working in class, but I'm sensing that I'm going at the wrong pace ... I'll figure it out.

Okay, bla bla bla. Get to bed already, you old hag.

Last "No Students" Day ... (sort of)

I am criminally optimistic every year about my abilities to plan for the WHOLE first week before the start of school. I am now officially ready (mostly) for the first day of school tomorrow. I have a vague outline of what I want to do in my precal and calculus classes for the rest of the week. Do I have work "made up"? No. Do I have copies made? Ha ha. I think I'll just have to face the facts that I'm a last minute person (until next year). It all seems to get done eventually, so no (big) worries.

There were a plethora of students around today from student council and what not putting up banners and decorations and such. I got to see some of my favorite kiddies and chat with them, and some of them will even be in my classes. Yay. Some of them I will have had for 3 years. I love it. ... I'm feeling good about this year. I think AP Calculus AB (ooh, official sounding) is going to be a blast. I have a better handle on the level and depth and strategies and such of how I want to teach precalculus (this being the 2nd year I'll have taught it here). I have "older" kiddies, so maybe less pain-in-the-butt class management issues. So ... I'm psyched for 2005-2006. WooHoo. (talk to me before Christmas, please, and remind me of this feeling :) ).

First "Official" Inservice Day (2nd "real" one)

Today we met at school and basically had 3 goals to accomplish in addition to being able to spend time in our rooms. Sheesh the day goes by fast when you have so much to do and are just starting and running back and forth to take care of details and talking with friends and hashing out class ideas and getting keys and going to meetings and going out to lunch and cajoling the counselor to let you get an early peak at your class roster even though it's not official and so on and so forth.

I destressed (not that I'm stressed ... yet) at yoga afterwards, and boy do my back and all my joints feel healthier for going. ... More fun tomorrow.

Inspiration: Day 1

Today was our first day of inservice, and it was pretty inspiring. First of all, it was fun to see all my teacher friends that I hadn't seen in ages. Of course at this point in the year, everyone is tanned and well-rested and they have no evidence of stress on their faces.

We watched some great teacher clips from various movies and saw some amazing quotes that I wished I could write down to think about. Our principal and a few key other people put out their best effort to bring us all together and to think about the 3 R's of school: rigor, relevance, and relationships. ... Makes you re-committed to putting out your best effort for the following school year.

We've also hired 5 new math teachers this year (for a total of 20 math teachers), so I had a chance to put names to faces. It's funny how after 9 years, I've basically/usually been working with the same "type" of math-teacher person for the most part: hard-working, not too put together/made up, sense of humor, friendly, ... Today, one of the teachers struck me as different from the mold, and I found myself going all judgmental on this person. Blach. Who. Am. I? I don't even know the person, and I'm already making some assumptions. Stop it. Be a good person, missy.

End-O-Summer

Inservice starts today, and I couldn't sleep for the 2nd night in a row. Oh well, I'm guessing that it'll all even out and become routine in a bit ... or I'll pass out from exhaustion and get my sleep that way.

I had a great summer and got to visit all sorts of friends in various cities. Friends rock. I also got the unexpected surprise of finding out that I'm teaching calculus this year. Woo Hoo. I went to an AP workshop and have been studying my little heart out, and I'm way excited.

Other than that, I'm going to try .... no, I'm GOING TO get up at 5:30 (or earlier!) every day to do 20 minutes of exercise (cardio or weights). That plus the yoga and dancing and excellent eating habits (cough cough) should do wonders for this aging body.

Change in Plans

My principal called me yesterday and said that our calculus teacher quit. The same teacher that all the brouhaha was about last year (they were trying to fire this person unfairly, etc.). So my principal asked if I wanted to take over that schedule of calculus and precalculus. In a heartbeat! But I told her that whatever she decided or worked out would be fine. So long story short-ish, I have to go to an AP Calculus weeklong course on Monday ... 3 hours away ... staying with friends ... I guess I'd better bone up on my calculus facts :). I'm excited now for next year ... less crappy discipline problems (ooh, famous last words) ... a brain-challenging adventure ... new experiences.

Yea Summer

How easy was it to slip into summer mode? Quite. Right after school got out, we took a trip to the northeast to visit friends, and we're now back home. I'm sleeping in late, spending way too much time on the computer, reading novels, writing my "book" (too exciting), doing chores I can't do easily during the school year (dentist, doctor, car ... appointments), and just generally enjoying my days ... except today where I had about 4 hours of car appointments.

Yesterday I noticed my brakes were feeling mushy, so with my oil change today I had them look at it ... to the tune of $300. I can't help feeling helpless, especially since after driving away, the brakes STILL feel mushy. Then I went in to put a deposit on some tires (my treads are dangerously nonexistent), and my $48/tire tires all of a sudden racked up a $290 bill .... "oh yes, there's the $10/tire installation, $8/tire shipping, $10/tire blinking and breathing while we're working ...... fees". Bloody hell.

Hubby keeps saying to get a new car because I do keep pouring money into this 1995 Honda Civic. BUT. It gets anywhere from 40 to 50 miles per gallon depending on my driving conditions. It is a cool (horizon grey) color. It does not have power steering or anything, so I can work some muscles for free. The shape is great as opposed to the new "suburban mom" looking Honda Civics. .... I still say that if I pour in less than $10,000 into it in the next 10 years ($1,000/year??? ... I'm getting dangerously close ... have I surpassed that?), then it's still cheaper than a new car.

Post 2004-2005 School Year

Yippee! It's summer (though it's raining outside and doesn't feely summery this Saturday morning). Wednesday was the last "official" day of kiddies. Thursday we had to go in and go through our signout checklist and attend our last staff meeting. Friday I went to Barnes & Noble with a fellow teacher to map out our SAT workshop we'll be giving next week. Today I'm one of about 60 teachers helping with graduation. Tuesday and Wednesday, SAT workshop. and THEN I'm done ..... (except for the occasional meetings over the summer for our new "smaller learning communities" shift next year). Oh, and the book(s) I'm wanting to write ... and the Spanish I'm still learning ... and the teaching books I want to read ... and my files I want to go through .... But good golly, I don't have to get up in front of little kiddies every day and "perform".

WooHoo.

Yippeeeee

How excited am I that tomorrow's the LAST official day of school (for the kiddies). WooHoo! I celebrated by leaving work early (for me) and going out to dinner at Whole Foods, then going to see "Bride & Prejudice". Can I tell you that I was the ONLY person in the movie theater? How fun is that. I had the best time. It was a great movie for me to see - the India shots were intriguing, the clothing was colorful and beautiful to behold, the singing/dancing was fun and funny, the story line was entertaining.

Today I gave only one final, so I had time to catch up and put all my "marbles" into place for tomorrow. Yesterday (Monday), I gave 2 finals. Some of the kids I have had for 2 years in a row, and I got hugs and cards and sweet memories. One of the things that makes it worthwhile. Today I had my 3rd period class. My one with the knitter (though she redeemed herself by recommending a good book/series for me to read ... Anne of Green Gables. Love. It.), the cell-phone addict (who had a funny "my cat peed on my pants last night and it smells and I CAN'T concentrate" incident today), the football player who could NEVER sit still and who to no one's surprise turns out to be ADD (today he was drinking a LARGE (64oz?) drink during the 2 hour final. The final in which we can give no hall passes. The final during which he REALLY had to go.)

Whew. I made it through a tough year. Yippee.

Mere Days

You KNOW it's almost over when you can calmly smile at little "rascals" and quietly think to yourself: pretty soon, I don't have to deal with your sorry ass behavior any more. Nya Nya Nya. ... My finals reviews went peachy in all 3 of my preps ... I don't know if I can hold out hope that they'll still be engaged by Friday. But, I'm making it worth points for EVERY ONE, and I keep stressing that finals are worth 1/4 of their semester grade, and I'm reviewing in little bites ... Hopefully, this will keep them working for me.

Poop. I just remember that I forgot my plan to cart a little bit home every day this week, so that I wouldn't have a big haul next week. Note to self: do this tomorrow oh forgetful one .... On the personal side. I had a great time after school by going to a trail nearby and rollerblading for an hour. Fun and exercise at the same time.

Review Week

Okay. One full week of review. I anticipate a lot of off task behavior and giggling and yearbook signing with the occasional look at the review problems. That's why I'll make it worth homework points to finish (even for the exempt kiddies). I'll just have to remember to relax and take it with a grain of salt and a big sense of humor and to remember ONE MORE WEEK WOO HOOOOOOOO.

I was reading in another blog (Marcia's Science blog?) about various ways she has her kids "take notes". That excited me because it seems the kids NEVER seem to realize that they can use their notes to study (except for the "good kids" who will succeed regardless). I did buy a book that had to do with "foldables", so I'll have to whip that out this summer and make plans for "note taking" next year.

Yup all sorts of grandiose summer plans for the NEXT school year. Hopefully, there'll be no flaking out. Oh yea! Did I also mention that I have ideas for 3 math "books" to write. Hmmmmm. Check back with me to see which ones get written.

Activity Success

Yesterday for a (small) part of my math classes, I had them do 2 activities that seemed to really engage them and had hilarious results. First, through a series of happenings, I've started drawing one-eyed round people (literally like a smiley face but with only 1 eye) ... and these critters have arms and legs and give you directions on how to complete assignments and such. Then sometimes on worksheets, they are sunbathing or talking French or holding signs .... so anyway, I asked them to let loose and draw me some new critters (small) so that I could cut and paste them on future assignments. They came up with some cute ones (well except for the one or two inappropriate decapitated or keg-looking ones!). The second assignment was to either write a Haiku about math or a math topic, or to write a letter to math, "Dear Math, ...". Oh my goodness did they have me laughing (which is not good since I seem to STILL be getting over a cold and practically everything sends me into a coughing fit. Especially laughing). ... How silent were they while they were drawing and composing. Sheesh, channel some of that focus into math, people.

In other news. I love that every day is a fresh start, and maybe some little kiddies that you snapped at the day before are all happy and bantering with you the next day, when all (seems to be) is forgiven.

Patience

Yet again I was reminded of the fact that if I am not well rested .... in fact completely unrested (to bed by 11 and up by 4), then my patience wears thin and I'm a crabby snappy puss with kids that are not doing what they need to be doing .... and then they're jerks for the rest of the period because I loudly told them for the second time to put their yearbook away ... and kept hammering at them until they did .... maaaaaaaaybe could have been more politic in how I approached it, but I'm tired, and it's the end of the year and this particular child is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO needy and (crabby alert) slow and shouldn't really be in my PAP class. Whew.

In other news, had lots of moments of kids making me laugh today, so I will bank those times.

Just in the Nick of Time

Usually I am in a situation in the classroom, and something will come out of my mouth, and THEN I realize that I probably shouldn't have spoken so quickly without thinking first. ... For example, that time when I quickly responded to a student who asked, "Do you know what's fun-----" And right at that point, I assumed he was going to finish the statement with "---funny?", and so I quickly responded, "me!". ... Well in actuality, he finished the question with "--- fun to do?". Yes. My face was red, and the class busted up laughing.

Well, today, we were talking about asymptotes in my algebra 2 classes, and I had them graphing various shifted versions of the parent functions: y = 1/x. I'm walking around to assess their knowledge, and I see this one student's graphing calculator screen, and he has tons of graphs on it, and it looked, well, furry. ..... So the thing I'm proud of myself for NOT saying even though it was ALMOST out of my mouth is, "wow, you've got a hairy asymptote there."

Friday Fun

Had dinner with a friend after work today. I looked forward to it all day ... all day of quizzing my little monsters .... all day of semi-relaxing because I didn't have to be "on" ... all day to contemplate all the grading I'm going to have to do real soon.

Dinner was tasty and the company was great. I love when you can just have a big laugh fest. Puts everything else in perspective. Viva Amigos!

Better and Better...

Does it always happen this way, and I just forget year to year? I'm actually enjoying my classes again consistently. The kids are more pleasant, time goes by quickly, we have laughs together. Even the nudges I have to deal with because of TMC don't bother me so much (late kids are *supposed* to be locked out of class, and then teachers with a prep are supposed to sweep them to the cafeteria). ... Of course now I've sealed it -- it's going to be hell on wheels for the next 2 TWO dos weeks of school that are left (plus finals).

In other news, I'm getting paranoid about my smelly shoes ???? Are they really so smelly that if I stay in my classroom with the door closed on my prep period, then the next class that comes in says, "ew, it smells horrible in here. It's making me nauseous." .... Or am I paranoid? Or am I using that as an excuse to GO TO THE OUTLET MALL this weekend and buy all new shoes. Hmmmmm.

Rituals ...

I guess I sometimes do things for me in the classroom (they make me giggle or smile or whatnot), and I don't know that the kids start to expect or look forward to these things, too. Most always (always?) I stand at the door at the end of class and say, "bye tall people; bye short people; bye weird people; bye normal people; bye giggly people.... and whatever else pops into my head when I see my various students walking out.

Well, today I was feeling kind of sick and didn't feel like using my voice much, and I didn't do this. I overhear one student after she's out the door, "hey, I miss her saying, "bye so-and-so people ...."". That made me smile.

Precalculus Success

Sometimes I love when at the last minute I get this "light bulb idea" about how to teach a particular topic. That happened today with my precalculus class's first exposure to a derivative. We've been working on limits and left and right limits and then moved on to the calculating of the slope of the tangent line to a curve, and today, Aha. Instead of just telling them the standard "shortcut" form of derivative for f(x) = ax^n ...... I had each group use the formal definition of derivative to calculate it for f(x) = ax^2 + b for various a's and b's, then as a class we looked at all the derivatives, and they saw the pattern. Yea. Tomorrow we'll do 3rd power and also maybe one ax^2 + bx + c one and we'll be off.