Changing Impressions

School has been in session for 3 weeks now, and I find it interesting how my impressions change as I get to know the kids. For the first week it's all a frenzy, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with all these new faces in class that I don't know. I already start to form some impressions (chatty, lazy, depressed, good-natured...) some right and some way off base.

Then the second week comes along and I get a better sense of the kids, and I know most (or all) of their names. They're more comfortable, and hence some are more chatty in class. I keep meaning to change seats (and I have some) but I need to wait until the 4th week when I can remove some extra desks from my class. (In hind sight, I could have just left the seats but not assigned anyone to them).

Now after 3 weeks have passed, I *almost* have my classroom the way I want it. I had a day or 2 where I could walk around most of the period to help the students while they practiced on a "puzzle" sheet of trig problems (How do you make chicken napoleon? Use only the bony parts! ar ar ar ... thanks pizzazz company). I have my homework correcting system in place (with the timer it takes at most 8 minutes or so after I answer questions).

Grades are due tomorrow, so I'm now in a frenzy of checking homework I've collected and such. With all this, I'm still not fully applying some of the teaching knowledge I wanted to test out yet. Soon. Soon.

Radian Technique

Last year my kids struggled with visualizing the placement of radian angles in standard position. They either had to convert (say 7 pi / 6) into degrees and then draw the angle accurately, or they just shook their heads at the crazy things their teacher asked them to do.

Over the summer my retired teacher friend mentioned that he used to teach the pi/6 and pi/3 parts by having them look at the clock and noticing that (say) from 3 to 9 (moving counter clockwise as a positive angle does) there are 30 minutes. Break that into 6 parts. They notice that's on "the hours" 2, 1, 12, 11, 10. Then the kids go back to their unit circle and place dots all around signifying the "hours" and those are the pi/6 separations. Then they go from there. Similarly, from 3 to 9 counterclockwise (a full pi), if we want to break it into 3 parts (pi / 3), that's every 10 minutes.

I had great success on Wednesday with them accurately placing the angles without converting. Woot. Woot. Hopefully, it'll stick in their heads better this year.

I also didn't do a great job last year with having them memorize thoroughly (and "get") sine and cosine of any multiple of 45 degrees or 30 / 60 degrees. They still had to work at it without immediately being able to answer. This year, I'm going to laminate page size unit circles. Then everyone gets laminated 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 triangles that have the side lengths and angles in degrees and radians on both sides and that fit nicely on the circle. Then we'll do an activity where they will place the reference triangles on the circle for various angles I give them. Hopefully, this will allow them to later on picture in their heads the height/placement of the reference triangle and quickly be able to recreate sin 135 or cos 5pi/6. We'll see.

Start of the Year

Right now after 10 days of school, I finally can place student names with faces (if they're in their seats in their period). Soon, hopefully, I'll even recognize and name all of them in the halls (out of context).

My homework policy of having them correct their work in a different color in class (I grade on completeness), was taking too long (15 minutes or so sometimes), and I was rushed and couldn't get through the current lesson. I figured out that they were dawdling and taking forever to get out their homework after the bell rang, and then they were talking too much and joking with their friends (some of them), but then we had to wait for everyone to be done. So. I have now brought in a timer, and when the bell rings I told them I won't remind them to get out their homework, I'll just start the timer and have the answers on the overhead. After 5 minutes I'll turn it off and take questions for at most 5 minutes. Any unanswered questions, they can write on their homework, and I'll answer it there. They are partly graded on their complete "grading", so hopefully this will be successful.

I'm still getting to know the kids and their abilities. I know I have some very bright ones, so I'll have to find more time in the day (hmph) to find extra challenging problems for them.
Anyone have any extra time they'd like to pass my way? I know we all just sit around and daydream most of the day.

Growing Pains

My class sizes in order are: 31, 19, 30, 24, 28. In my first class I already have chatters that just WON'T BE QUIET. I've done seat changes, I've done the stern teacher look, I've waited patiently. Today, I think there will be some field trips outside the door (either for a discussion, or maybe I'll just leave them there). In my 3rd class (gee, it happens to be the 2 largest classes) one of the problems is that they all know each other and have had math class with each other forever, AND it's right after lunch and they're hyped up on FDNVs (an acronym I just saw sprinkled all over a memo indicating that Texas will no longer allow the selling of FDNVs for fundraising during school hours .... "foods of diminished nutritional value").

I love my last period class - sweet hard-working slightly-goofy kids. What a nice way to end the day. I also am quietly thankful that 2 of my duty stations are completely hassle-free, and I can get work done while I'm monitoring hallway doors.

In other news, it's starting again/already where someone who has had me before is now in another teacher's math class, and it's just too ________, and it's not _______, and they wish _________ (fill in the blanks). Invariably as the year goes on, they get used to the new teacher and actually like it and all complaining is forgotten, so now I just have to reassure them and mention that they have to get along with and learn how to be successful in a variety of teacher's classes.

Math Autobiographies

At the start of every year, I have my students write a math autobiography: tell me about yourself, tell me about good/bad experiences with math, tell me about good/bad ... effective/ineffective experiences in any previous class (no teacher names), etc. I like this because I learn something about the kids, and I learn about what their take is on how they learn best.

This year I learned some interesting things. I have an 11th grader who has moved around various countries and has been homeschooled up to this year and is a wee bit apprehensive about public schools. I have a girl originally from Jamaica who is tired of being stereotyped and has some strong words to say about how people treat each other. I have a creative child who put her autobiography in the form of a fairy tale. I have a student who wants to enter the air force and got his first ride in an aerobatic (or jet??) plane this summer. I have a few students who are brand new to our school. I have (already!) a pregnant student. And as usual, I have funny, fun, studious, laid back, intense, happy, apprehensive, unique students.

Already Behind

Sheesh, 2 days into school, and my to-do list never seems to be completely accomplished. Oh yea, and then there's the actual prep for "teaching". I guess it's all the initial set up of the year: organizing the online grade book, starting your lesson plans, setting up the room, teaching the students your procedures, learning all their names, striving to remember your 4 extra duties and when you're supposed to be when, waking up at 4:30am every day from bad dreams and then not falling back asleep, getting all the proper furniture in your classroom, so that you're not tripping over computer wires or overhead wires, etc.

Then I never cease to be amazed at how frequently my first impressions of a student are way off. For example, a girl that I thought yesterday was a "toughie" and "sullen" turns out on the 2nd day to be the sweetest quietest mild-mannered girl with a "tough" exterior. I guess that's a good example of waiting and seeing and being able to be nicely surprised by all the nice kids I'll meet.

Inservice Week Over

Our first week back at work is over, and I think I have a pretty good start on things this year. We have 5 new (out of 20) math teachers, and I'm wondering if we'll ever level off. I've already seen some of my kids who are working away on a project at school, and I've seen a ton of other friendly faces. That's one of the nicer aspects of going back, seeing work friends that you don't see over the summer.

Here's a picture of the wedding cake my husband and I made for my sister-in-law. Pretty snazzy if I do toot my own horn (or really my husband's horn since he did the constructing while I made the royal icing and rolled out the marzipan and put on the flowers and such ... and of course helped make the EXTREMELY delicious fruitcake base that even the Americans liked).

It's modeled after a Mayan Temple since she's an anthropologist and studies bones found in/near them. We found cool chocolate rocks to sprinkle around the base. We (he!) used a toothpick to put creases in the shape of stones in the icing. And voila! A wedding cake.

whew. But not WHEW! yet

It's practically the last day of "teacher" summer as Tuesday (tomorrow) is our first day of inservice (lasting a week) before we start back with the kiddies. For about the last week or so we've been inundated with my husband's family that have come for his sister's wedding (which was yesterday, so most of the chores are over). ... I don't care how nice people are, it's still challenging to have houseguests for a bazillion days. Currently there are a total of 7 people sleeping at our house. Okay, I say "sleeping" but that doesn't include a certain someone who seems to be getting up at 3am and not falling back to sleep and is looking forward to having bags under her eyes for the start of school.

And this wedding thing. It was nice and all, but I still feel it's uncomfortable to be a voyeur at a pretty private-seeming (at least to me) moment. All these emotions are out on the table and the future bride and groom are getting choked up and professing all sorts of love for each other and it feels invasive to me.

On a funny note, my husband's brother's girlfriend is a hoot, and she also wanted to see if she could fry an egg on the sidewalk (this being steamy hot Texas to a Canadian). We cracked an egg on the pavement in front of our house. I didn't feel it was a terribly hot day (98F or so), and it was cloudy at the time, so it felt cooler. The egg white ran and basically disappeared. The yoke did "cook" after about an hour or so, and there were then all these attractive (fire?) ants feasting on the buffet. Our laziness (or something) has the egg still out there 2 days later, and most of the yolk is gone. Yum.

Summer Reading

Every summer I reread all or parts of each of these books to refresh my aging memory on the kind of teacher I want to be.

"How to Talk So Kids Can Learn" Faber & Mazlish (ISBN 0-684-82472-8)
This is a great book on how to interact more successfully with students (well really anyone) and to make them (and you) better people.

"Tools for Teaching" Fred Jones (ISBN 0-9650263-0-2)
I love his methods on discipline. Here's just one thing that sticks in my head: no means no. So if you say no the first time and then the student/child keeps pestering you or whining and you finally give in, then you're teaching them to whine again in the future. But if you're consistent with your "no", that works out better in the long run. He also has a section on body language of the students and their compliance and such. I don't use all his methods, but several things have helped me.

Three David R. Johnson books: "Every Minute Counts", "Making Minutes Count Even More", and "Motivation Counts".
They're all math related, and he has great ideas on how to ask questions, collect homework, structure a class, etc.

This year at an airport bookstore of all places I found "Fish for Schools". I was excited because I'd heard of it before. It's basically a structure for living that's based on 4 concepts the authors developed by watching the Pike's Place Fish Market workers. I like their ideas, and I was eager to see how this book could help, but alas, it seemed to be just an advertising to get their school video package. I wouldn't have minded, but it was really pricey. Still, the book had some great ideas and teacher stories.

I also skim through "The First Days of School" by the Wongs to remind myself of (for example) what 7 things (7? ... better start skimming) students want to know on the first day of class, etc.

Any other teaching book recommendations out there?

Note Taking / Using Your Notes

I'm batting an idea around my head about actually teaching "note using" skills this year in all my classes. It seems to me that a majority (or at least too many to be comfortable) of my students don't know how to use their notes once they get home. They seem to be just humoring me by "taking notes" and then don't really see the point of them later (or their book for that matter).

I've not fleshed everything out completely yet (all ideas are welcome), but here's what I've come up with so far. Every so often during a class (10 minutes? 5 minutes?), I'll pause the class and ask them to quickly scan over what they've written and then put a noticeable star or mark near things that they need clarification on or more time to think on. Time seems to be in short demand in class, and there are those students who don't need the extra time, so I don't know if I'll spend too much time in class going over every concern. I also want them to become self sufficient and confident in their skills of figuring things out on their own, so maybe I won't address concerns.

Then I'll discuss or teach them how to use their notes when they're at home doing homework. ... Maybe a poster up in class (and give them a copy) as a constant reminder:

"How to do homework"
1. scan over class notes to refresh your memory
2. spend time figuring out the starred/confusing sections (ponder / look in book / call a friend / go on line)
3. start your homework (with header: page #, problem #s, date, topic(?)). attempt every problem.
4. for those you do not know how to do, make a start / look for examples in book/notes, write down specific reasons you got stuck
5. in class as we are going over answers, IN A DIFFERENT COLOR, put a check by correct answers, indicate wrong problems and write down the answer. Make sure to ask someone (me / groupmate / friend) for help on the ones you didn't understand.
6. later on make sure you go over incorrect ones and find out how to do it (friend / notes / book)

Hopefully, this will grab some extra students and make them more successful. I think when I check homework, their points will be based on: attempt, in class corrections, header.

Nightmares

TMI alert.

It hasn't happened lately, but who's to say it won't again. Invariably when I have to get up at night to pee, you know, that mind-ping-pong: "but I'm tired. but I'm uncomfortable. but I don't wanna get up. but you'd better" feeling, right when I wake up, I realize I've had another "pee nightmare". Maybe I'm not the only one.

The dreams often occur in public restrooms and one or more of several things occur. Either there are no doors on any stalls, or there are doors, but the bowls are filled to the brim, so that you would not want to sit down, or there's no paper, or there are a lot of people in the bathroom and one or more of the previous things occur. Or there's the dreaded "dippage": somehow a piece of your clothing gets dipped in an unflushed toilet.

I guess that's my mind's way of waking me up and prodding me to take measures.

Calculus Workshop Ideas

I just returned from my weeklong workshop, and now I feel more secure in teaching BC this year. Except it won't be strictly BC, I think, because of numbers, I may have a "stacked" class of mixed AB / BC students together. Maybe I'm being totally unrealistic, but it was either that or no BC, and I wanted the challenge for the kids (and me) that signed up for it.

The workshop teacher was mostly a lecture type of teacher, and she commented that since BC goes at such a fast pace, she doesn't feel she has time for explorations or "fun" activities or such. So in that sense I didn't get any "fun" ideas directly from the workshop. I did get some teaching-mechanics ideas from her.

She seemed to like Staedtler MEDIUM nonpermanent pens for her overhead. She found them at art supply stores, and I liked the fact that you could buy individual ones. Purple, here I come.

She also had a teeny water bottle (3" high?) with paper towels nearby, to clean parts of her slides instead of using her fingers all the time.

When a kid asks something she didn't know, she said, "I don't know. I haven't thought about it. What do you think?" And that seems to get good discussions going.

On the overhead, do scratch work on the side in a different color to keep everyone on the same level and the "not so quick" students will have a point of reference instead of not asking and feeling stupid.

Her homework policy is to walk around the room for a quick check and chat with the students (with grades given and such). The main thing about that (instead of collecting it) she feels is that they have to look her in the eye and tell her they didn't do the homework, and she felt this got more of them to do it. Also, it builds a sense of community and the kids felt acknowledged.

I thought of having an activity or several activities where the kids analyze a multiple choice question. I found that last year, the kids all thought the MC questions were easy because they found their answer and moved on. It didn't occur to me to ever teach this skill that the test makers know what types of mistakes they make and will have such answers. So my activity is for them to do one problem and circle an answer. Then give the right answer. Then they have to go analyze the other choices and literally figure out what types of mistakes would have gotten that answer. With this hopefully they'll build an awareness of checking work and being careful on MC tests.

I'm thinking of having a suggestion box up front for various comments students want to make but don't have time for in class. There'll be a template of what's acceptable/needed ... mainly date, period, and maybe name, and comment. Maybe I can also have a Whole Foods kind of wall where comments are displayed and responses shown.

Some (rough) poster ideas of ones I want to make and display in my room:
"What do you do when no one is watching? Do the right thing."
"Get more sleep"

Summer Activities

How lucky am I? Today we're going to Canada for a week to visit my husband's family, and from there I'm coming back to go to a week-long calculus workshop. And THEN the traveling is done for the summer. Whew. Then we get to continue on our quest of "making a wedding cake that doesn't embarrass us".

My husband's sister is getting married (another mixed marriage - Canadian to American), and apparently, the tradition is for someone in her family to make a wedding cake (fruitcake base). Yeah, yeah, I know, but we actually have a great recipe from their grandmother. It's dark, and you smother it in brandy (you keep "feeding" it for a long time after it's done). And it keeps forever - apparently, all that pickling does it good. And maybe we say it's tasty because after eating it, we are slightly tipsy, and think it's tasty.

What we're practicing is the shape and the icing (type and technique) and the decorations around it. So we're eating a lot of practice cakes, and inviting people over to share in the calories of our trials. We've had 4 run throughs (hmmm, maybe that's why my clothes are getting snug), and I think this last one is really close.

Inevitable Europe Pictures

(Later Note: Ackh! Apparently, I am not savvy on all the ins & outs of picture linking. Thanks to Heidi, I can mention that you can click on the beautiful rectangles to see the pictures ... out of order, of course.)

We had a boatload of fun in Europe and have almost completely returned to normal life. Now it's time to bore our friends and family with pictures. Here are five that sum things up.

If I do it right, the first one is of the Tower of London. We spent about 4 hours in there exploring all the parts and reading all the information. I was fascinated by the torture information and the fact that the Tower of London was mainly a residence. The second picture is a main :) reason for going to London: scones & clotted cream for me and fish & chips for my husband.

The 3rd picture is at the Grand Place in Brussels. This is a large square and there happened to be a free concert that night of Pagliacci. We had walked ALL day and could only take standing for an hour at the opera. It was in Italian with electronic subtitle boards in Dutch and French. Bon.

The 4th picture is of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It is/was Rembrandt's 400th birthday this year and they were having a special exhibit. We tried 3 times to get in and never quite managed it. The first time they were closed because some crazy person threw acid on a picture and damaged it, and the museum had to deal with that. The second time the line was long, so we thought we'd go back later. Later, the line was longer, but we stood for about 30 minutes and were 1/2 way through the line. We flaked out, and a funny thing happened. A woman was riding by on her bike with her kid in the cart on the bike and was talking to her kid and said, "we should tell them (the queuers) 'it's not worth it'". Hmmm. We did finally see a nice Rembrandt exhibit at the airport on the way out. The last picture is of a representative canal in Amsterdam. Apparently, there are more canals there than in Venice. Okay, travel show over.

Two+ NYC Experiences

I visited my friend in NYC when I was up north (with the Yankees ar ar), and we saw, "Mama Mia". I was so looking forward to it, but it just didn't do it for me. It didn't help that I had a bonus singer in the form of a little girl behind me who knew ALL the lyrics and could belt them out loudly. It also didn't help that I started feeling my 40+ years, and all the young kiddies in the cast (20+) looked like babies. BABIES.

We also went to to Josie's (I think it was), this eclectic healthy food frou-frou restaurant up on 74th and Amsterdam. Delicious food. Pricey, but I guess that's NYC. When we went in, the hostess scanned us up and down and proceeded to sit us in the back near a noisy table and the kitchen area. My mild-mannered friend asked if we could have a less noisy table, and we were shown to a nice window seat. Now maybe it's just my interpretation of "good" and "bad" tables, but why don't they fill up all the "good" tables on a first-come-first-serve basis? Too weird.

My next weird experience was on the train going back to NJ. Oh my goodness did we have some loud gangster rival groups in our car yelling and threatening to fight and being all kinds of noisy. You just wanted to muffle them. Then the other people in the car got into it and started yelling, "Jerry. Jerry. Jerry." Blach. It basically settled down one stop before I got off. Whew, blessed silence.

Parent Visit

I'm off to the northeast tomorrow to visit friends, and when I get back, my dad is coming to visit for 4 days with his girlfriend (a word that definitely sounds funny when applied to a 72 year old). Holy cow, I just realized he's older than I'd thought about lately. He usually seems so young.

Anyhow, this will be an awkward visit (like all of them). I love my dad, and I know he loves me, but we never have more than a handful of words to say to each other. Oh goody, now there'll be another witness to the awkwardness. Hopefully, she's a talker, and I can have my husband as a buffer, and with those extra 2 people, maybe there'll be enough conversation to make us seem like normal people.

Yeesh, and that Sunday is Father's Day. Okay, now I have to plan something, ... horrible daughter that I am.

Teacher Pay

I was just watching TV while making dinner, and there was a "Union" ad on. It had 4-6 different smiling people saying things like, "I like my union because ...", and then they all proceeded to say bad things in the vein of fatcat union bosses lining their pockets, money going to politicians the workers don't support, huge union dues that cut into paychecks etc. Oh my goodness! Is that why there is effectively no teachers' union in Texas - the anti-union people have worked their magic?

All I know is that in NJ we had a strong union, and as a teacher I felt more respect than I feel in Texas (I took about a $14,000/yr pay cut as a teacher moving from NJ to TX). In NJ, any extra duties were compensated. In TX "what do you mean you won't perform this yet-another duty for free? it's not about you, it's about the kids!". Somehow they make you feel like a money grubber for even thinking about pay.

Ew, see it's already seeped into my pores because I now DO feel like a money grubber. A poorly paid money grubber.

Exercising

I guess I forgot that "teaching" requires a ton of standing and rushing around the halls making copies and standing and walking at your duty stations and such. Shockingly, in the summer when you're on your duff, if you eat the same amount of food, you gain weight. Who knew?

Okay, new plan, walk in the mornings and walk at night (less skin cancer potential, and less Texas summer heat issues). I'm still going to yoga 6 times a week, so that's good, but that apparently does not make up for sitting around all day. All this energy stressing about weight and health. You think THAT'D burn calories.

I'm not a total slug, though, I'm finishing a quilt (finally) that I started too long ago to mention. I made a skirt. I'm still practicing cake decorating (yea, more food to eat/not eat).

Fun Facts

Here are some things I came across while surfing the internet (which I'm doing way too much of). Now I haven't verified them, yet, but EVERYONE knows that anything you read must be true, right ahem?

The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
Porcupines float in water.
The human body has enough fat to produce 7 bars of soap.
The elephant is the only animal with 4 knees.
Frogs sometimes eat enough fireflies that they themselves glow.
Because heat expands the metal, the Eiffel Tower always leans away from the sun.

Today I must do some gardening to get me outside instead of inside reading and doing puzzles and napping all day (though I have been going to yoga every day). I loved yesterday's teacher. You know those people that just glow from within? That was her. She just exuded honesty and beauty and knowledge.

Hello Summer

A most excellent start to the summer: 6 rented movies (5 were great), 1 matinee, sleeping at least 8 hours a night, a math party, a dinner party, starting in on my stack of novels, time, time, and more free time. I also get to go visit friends in the northeast, AND go to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, AND go to a BC Calculus workshop, AND make a wedding cake with my husband for his sister's August wedding in Texas. Yea. Let the fun begin (continue)

Things I've learned so far:
1. Royal icing tastes terrible
2. Your secret design based on your sister-in-law's profession, is not that secret
3. Butter flavored crisco in a buttercream frosting is not as bad as I thought it'd be (I HATE margarine)
4. People make fun of a fruitcake for a wedding ... even though it's a Canadian tradition and even though we really do have a great recipe handed down from a grandmother (I'm a picky American eater, and I think it's delicious) .... but whatever.

Guilt Tactics

Today was the last day of school for teachers, to finish up administrative chores and check out. Usually it ends with a faculty meeting where the principal gets up and gives a "go us" speech and says goodbye to any faculty that's leaving. Today there was an extra 1.5 hours devoted to something else.

We had 217 juniors (out of about 400 or so .... dang, that's a LARGE %) who did not pass at least one of the 4 subject areas of our exit exam. Oh my. Our principal thought she'd try something new this summer (I started getting a bad feeling) where she'd dole out the names to the 150 or so faculty to be mentors - mentors that called the kids at least a couple of times to remind them of tutoring available over the summer and of tests dates. She "knew" not every faculty would step up to the plate, so maybe those who knew the kids and had already formed a relationship with them would take 3 or so kids.

Well, she started calling out names of students and teachers raised their hands to mentor them. And on and on and on. Intermittently, she would interject with comments like "our school is made up of people / individuals", "this test is what we're about", "our kids have to pass this test". I kept waiting for names of kids I knew. None came. Then I started obsessing that I wasn't choosing anyone. Then I started to feel resentful that I should be manipulated into picking someone. Then I started not actively choosing students.

After the last name was called, here was her zinger, "and for the people who didn't choose a student, I want to thank you, because we don't want anyone to volunteer and not have their heart in it and to drop the ball and not call the student". Is it just me or was that saying one thing and meaning another? I HATE that kind of manipulation. It's so offensive. We bust our butts all year coming in early in the morning, leaving late at night, tutoring practically every day after school. Tons of people were volunteering. Why not honor that and end it on a good note instead of calling to fact that there were people who did not volunteer for this ONE task. It's like I see her panning the room and committing to memory the nonvolunteers .... okay HERE are the people on my poop-list for next year. Great. Have a terrific summer.

Yearly Ritual

I just want to document what I did today (2nd annual), so that if and when I come back to read this a year from now (minus a week), I won't go wa wa wa and not go to the matinees on the last week of school for a fill-in-the-blank reason.

I got off my fanny and made sure I finished all my last-day chores at school today and high tailed it out of there at 1:15 pm to make lunch and a 2:30 showing of "Kinky Boots". This year I wasn't the only one in the theater (good. more people enjoying life), but I still had a great time. Even though I have/had 6 rental movies waiting for me at home, there's still something about going out to the movies. Every time I go by myself, I wonder why I don't do it more often. How ridiculous that we get so bogged down in the chores of life that we don't stop and do plain simple fun things more often.

Great movie, by the way. I love shows where the underdog "wins" and wise things are said and you laugh and lose yourself in the film. ... Of course, now I just finished one of my rentals, and oh my, guess I have to go watch a third before it gets too late. A triple feature. How decadent.

Graduation

Even though we have one more "student" day of school on Thursday (ice day make up), tonight (Wednesday) was graduation which I worked. The kids were so cute - hugs galore and all dressed up and mostly serious. Our principal makes it a big deal about decorum and such, and our funny head AP models the hug-em-and-ooh-and-aah-while-you-pat-them-down-for-contraband moves that we're to perform to make sure no beach balls and silly string and tortillas (?) make it through. Oh, and they're supposed to arrive withOUT their robes on, so that there is no repeat flashing incidents during their walk across the stage. Ahem. All in all you just wanted to pinch their cheeks.

Learning Attitude

What if all students approached school and class challenges like yoga. Your teacher shows you something difficult, and then you try it and don't get it the first time, but you take a deep breath and every subsequent time you try it you get closer and closer and MAYBE eventually you get it, but you are persistent and don't get (too) frustrated and know the struggle is in itself a learning experience because it teaches you a wee bit something new about the situation, and eventually you can meld all the pieces together to figure the whole thing out.

Okay, I'm looking skyward for those flying piggies.

Next year's (lofty) goals:
1. more differentiated MATH instruction for the weakest to the super strong
2. stay more on top of students who are struggling in calculus and don't let the year slip away with them being totally clueless
3. a stricter late work policy and homework policy (now I just check for "mostly" done. I want to check for "all" attempted and no fakers)
4. create a parent e-mail group and send out a mass mailing about upcoming tests/projects/...
5. have students keep track of their own grades (and that will be for a grade) ... maybe have their parents sign off on it periodically (ownership of their learning)
6. incorporate "some" games into the learning (saw some cool precal ones at an AP Central / college board workshop that I want to try)
7. more: chocolate / movies / laughing / crocs / visits with friends / sleep

End of Year Happy Dance

Can't stop the big smile on my face as I think that within a week I'll be able to sleep more than 6 hours a night, go to matinees, go to yoga every day if I choose, be a book reading glutton, ... Ahhhhh summer.

I was also "mean teacher" on Friday to my calculus classes (last Friday of their last full week). I was tired of handing out bonus points if they did the daily activities we did (with their hideous attitudes), and I certainly did not want them sitting around doing nothing for 50 minutes, so I taught them about the binomial theorem (which for this particular class is something they did not learn last year) and how it can be used to multiply out binomials to any integer power. Then I gave them a 1 question quiz at the end of the period. Sheesh, you should have heard the whining (only from a select rude few). But there I was with the grin on my face. As my fellow lunch duty teacher said later, "it's pay back time". Oh well, it's good for them, and it's useful information. And I had baked them cookies the night before.

In other news, if anyone wants a copy of the cross section project I did with my students, send me e-mail at math_mambo@yahoo.com (that's math_mambo ... in case it doesn't show up), and I'll send you a copy. It's basically what I handed out with some extra things I learned this first pass through. I certainly did not create the project, but I had fun doing it.

Funny Ha Ha

We had a staff development during one of our prep periods on Thursday, and we broke into little groups to discuss collaboration of teachers and how to hold teachers accountable for various tasks/duties (we have a LOT of teachers that just don't show up for their duties). Well, in our little group of 5, as we're talking about these 2 things, one guy is reading the school newspaper, and the other is working a math worksheet. I don't think they got it.

Parting Gifts

Usually I don't like receiving gifts from students. I feel awkward (they shouldn't have), and I'd rather they wrote me a nice card or note (those I save). But. Yesterday a senior I've had for 3 years gave me a plant and a great note. Apparently, the plant is an offspring from one of his plants he's had for 11 years, so he writes that he's leaving a legacy of himself with me. He also decorated the pot with funny things he remembered from class. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. What a sweet and memorable thing to do.

It's going to be hard to say goodbye to the ones I've known for that long (most of them :) ). AND. After next year, there'll be kids I've had for 4 years. That will be harder. I don't know that that will ever happen again because I don't seem to be teaching geometry and algebra 2 next year. I love teaching calculus and precalculus, but I'll miss the goofiness of some of the younger kids from geometry. Maybe that's a blurred memory talking there.

Sticky Notes

What have I been thinking all these years? Usually when I go around helping kids, I ask first, then I write on their papers any hints or math steps they need, or I find a piece of scrap paper and do the same. Well, yesterday after school I just happened to be carrying around one of my many pads of sticky notes (girly colors, about 3" x 3"), and I proceeded to write on it and then stick it to their papers. I got so excited, I rushed around and gave more help and more sticky notes, "oh here, let me show you the steps on my hot pink paper and then let me stick it to your review sheet."

Who forgot to tell me of this idea?

On a side note, after I told my husband of my "new" discovery, the CostCo "maniac" said that then we'd better buy them in bulk there, so that we don't deplete our retirement money. .... only if they have cool colors is my thought.

Finals Review

On Monday my precalculus students turned in their packets for finals review. I asked them to make a study schedule, a list of topics we'd covered, a list of book sections covered, and to gather together tests and homeworks. I graded it on the spot while they reviewed and handed it back that period.

Most kids did a great job. The funny thing is that the 2 students that were complaining the loudest did not turn in anything. It was also interesting to look at their study schedules. They ranged from "I will study every night", to a breakdown of "M 20 minutes, T 1 hour, W none ...", to "M 20 minutes: limits, T 30 minutes: polynomial zeroes, quadratic formula".

Oh my. One student budgeted herself about 5 minutes each night for a week of studying. I had a talk with her in disbelief and asked if that was all she was going to have to study. She said yes.

Anyway, I'm proud of them for rising to the task. Hopefully, they'll now use the stuff. I'll have to keep it fresh in their minds and/or keep hounding them and/or have another assignment that guages whether or not they're studying.

In other news, I've had requests for the cross section project write up. I've started it. I'm guessing I could e-mail it to people unless someone has a better idea on how to make it available. ... My kids turned in more projects on Monday. Oh my are they creative. Another kid had a tornado, and then drew lots of cute animals on foam, and then stuck them all over the cross section.

Calculus Project

triangles on a parabola base
Originally uploaded by math_mambo.

Here are a few of the finished (and almost finished) projects from my math class. The kids surprised me and themselves with their creativity. The "rocket" boy still claims he is not creative. I have to admit that I didn't know what to expect when I assigned the "turn them into something" aspect of the project (that I got from a summer workshop), and I'm pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Note the tornado picture and the guy flying through the air. What you don't see is the cow flying through the air on the other side. Mine is the green and purple one. Someone suggested that it looks like the wicked witch's hat, so that's what I'll turn it into (especially appropriate since I'm listening to the "Wicked" book on CD to and from work).

artsy test picture

artsy test picture
Originally uploaded by math_mambo.

I'm expanding my blog knowledge and posting my first picture - taken while on vacation. Hopefully, soon I can post the calculus project pictures.

My New Friends

This is my LAST week this year of TMC duty during one of my prep periods (for kids late to class .... who get to sit in the cafeteria instead of wandering the halls or disrupting class to show up late). It's been the usual week of being cussed out, being disobeyed, and being snarled at on my duty. BUT, it made my job easier because zip zip I write a referral, and POOF! they disappear to ISS and out of my hair, "bye bye surly children. thanks for visiting."

Anyway, today it was a light load (only 8 children / 6 per row) and they were all polite. I started talking with one girl, and she proceeded to tell me all about the piercings she wants to get: 10 on her tongue, 2 rows down her back (so she can lace ribbon through them), several around her mouth, and then one in her ear so she can hang a chain from ear to mouth, .... I forget the others. Then (and I hope she was joking) she said she wanted to split her tongue so that she'd have more edges with which to line rings. Ew.

Then the boy next to her started to show me his tongue stud, and we had a lively discussion about foods that get stuck there and how it was a proven fact (he said) that every tongue piercing you get knocks off 5 years from your life (so being a math teacher, I then calculate that the girl would be dead ..... yesterday ... or really soon anyway).

Super goofiness.

Passive Learners

Finals are starting soon. During the last week before finals, here's the usual scenario:

I debate how much class time to spend reviewing (too little and I can't be sure they review at home, too much and they get antsy in class)
I make a list of topics we've covered
I make review sheets
I monitor class to make sure they are all reviewing.

Hmmmmm. I guess I must be part of the problem of creating passive learners. On Tuesday I had many interesting conversations with various students: "when are you going to give us review sheets, so we can study?" ... "I can't study yet, my teacher hasn't given me review topics/sheets." ... "how will I know what's on the final by myself?" ... "it's the teacher's job to give us review materials." ... Ew.

I had a little discussion with my advisory about how THEY might take ownership of their learning and study on their own. I think I'll take my own advice and give the following assignment on Friday, due Monday:

1. go over your notes from January to present and make a list of topics we've covered
2. for each unit find a relevant quiz/test and at least 3 homework assignments covering that unit.
3. make a list of the textbook sections that cover the topics.
4. make a list of the days available until finals and map out a realistic amount of time you can devote to studying for your math final every day.
5. gather everything together in a paperclip and hand in. NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED ... (worth 2 homework assignments).

Shoes

I love Crocs. They're so comfortable, and I can wash them, and they're ventilated. Goodbye tired smelly shoes, hello Crocs. I started out with 1 pair (pale yellow), then fell in love and instead of wearing the same pair of shoes every day (to be alternated with birkenstocks), I bought another pair (light blue). Then (and I do NOT have a shoe problem) I felt I needed a "formal" pair to go with my darker clothes, thus I bought a brown pair (for when I cough cough dress up while teaching) .

So then I started getting the bug. I HAD to HAD to HAD to have a purple pair. And this was no impulse purchase. I thought about it long and hard and searched and searched, but alas, it was not meant to be. Then, while in St. Louis at the math conference we went to the mall one evening (to be true, ahem, Americans you have to go shopping at a mall while in new cities) my eyes grew wide and my breath caught, and I saw a kiosk full of Crocs. And, yes, you guessed it, they had purple in my size. So now I have 4 pair. So far.

Now it's a given that students may not remember math formulas or recall facts they learned from yesterday, but they will notice when you are wearing new attire. When yet another student mentioned my new purple Crocs and asked where I got them, I mentioned that I bought them in St. Louis. Then I said, "you know like a souvenir". Ar ar, I thought I was being funny. Well, another student topped that by saying, "don't you mean a shoe-venir?"

Horrendous Days

After a horrible day like Friday, I want to go back in time to my morning self, innocently getting ready for work, and either hug me or warn me somehow (Run! Run while you can!). .... Or sometimes, when I'm getting ready for work in the morning, I'll look me in the eyes and wonder, "is this going to be one of those days ... how will I know ... when will it happen ... oh no ... dun DUN dunnnnnn (cue in the creepy/eerie music)?".

And then there's the obsessing about "the incident" for the rest of the day. What kind of human goofiness makes you take just one small chunk of your day and replay it over and over and over and let it consume you for much more of your time than it's worth?

Creepy/whiny/calculus girl was in a prime state today choosing to use her time not to actually work, but to loudly proclaim how selfish and inconsiderate I am to assign a project that's due next week when she has 2 more AP exams to take (they work on the project in class. there's no outside work. it should look really cool when done). I had to send her outside and have a discussion with her. Oh, I'm sorry, not a discussion, but a whining session on one side and a disbelief and frustration on the other. Ew.

It helps (mostly) to remember that I've had other "painful" students in the past I've obsessed about in the moment, and now I give them barely a thought. This too shall pass. Deeeeeeeeeeep breaths.

Good Looking

What is it about good looking people that makes others gravitate towards them? Or makes people give them special favors or thinks their opinions are "all that" - like they occupy a higher plane of being? Is it just human nature that people want to be around or look at pleasant things? I mean, I think most people know deep down that just because you're good looking, it doesn't mean you are smarter or more apt than others. I've also seen situations where people try to impress good looking people, as in, if this "looker" thinks I'm special, then I really must be worthy. ... I just find it a curious phenomenon.

Play Pool

It worked! During 1st period, we had time to test out the elliptical pool table, so we set up the "shelf" cut out on a table and used their calculated values of a, b, & c to locate the foci. We had a rubber "jax" ball (super bouncy ball), and poof "most" of the time the ball traveled from 1 foci to the other after it bounced off the wall .... no matter where we bounced it from. We did a little yelp of excitement and kept testing it out.

I had to share the thrill with my calculus class the next period. After I finished describing it, Miss Snotty Girl sneered, "oh. I thought you were going to say something cool like it went back to its original spot." ..... (you're whiny and your shirts are cut too low) ... BUT, theoretically, that should be what happens since it went through the 2nd foci. I'll have to test it out.

In other nail-biting news, the AP Calculus exam is Wednesday at 8am (today!). Oh man, they'd better pass. I'll be crossing my fingers all day.

Reminder

A college counselor at our school reminded me today to concentrate on / recognize / praise the "good students". She said that at the beginning of the year she made a conscious decision to celebrate the kids that are doing what they need to be doing and furthering their applications and such. She felt that so often we drain our energies correcting and noticing and obsessing about the students that are goofing off, not turning in their work, skipping class, ...

I'm guilty of this. I'm guessing the kids that are always quiet and doing the right thing are easy to ignore because they make no noise/trouble. Something is seriously wrong with that scenario.

NCTM Fun

I had a great time with my coworkers in St. Louis at the NCTM conference. I went to talks on assessment, questioning, struggling learners, fun math, challenging brain stretchers .... I'm revitalized to end our school year.

Here's one puzzle I got from a presenter. She puts up a new line every day, and her students have to guess the pattern (and/or guess the next row of numbers). I'll put up a few, but of course it goes up in stages and can go on forever (and lead to interesting follow up questions).

1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
....

Pool Tables are Ready

My sweet husband cut out the 3 elliptical pool tables from our left over shelving material. I wasn't home when he did them.

The first one went fine. He just cut along the outline my 1st period made. He also did the 2nd one, but felt the outline was too close to the edge (within an inch), but cut it anyway. On the 3rd one, he decided to cut uniformly about 1/2" in from the outline of the ellipse because again, he felt it was too close to the edge.

Well, unexpected, but a great question for the students: is this new shape still an ellipse by definition? I posed it to them on Tuesday without resolving the issue. I'll let them stew over it (or in most likelyhood forget about it) while I'm gone for 3 days .......... to the NCTM conference in St. Louis.

When I get back, we'll try out the tables and see how accurately we can shoot from one focal point anywhere along the edge to see if it bounces back to the other focal point. Tres exciting.

I guess I'd better go pack since I'm leaving for the airport in 45 minutes!

Expectations of Students

I gave my practice AP Calculus AB exam this past weekend. The students had to show up at 8:30 in the morning and sit for about 3.5 hours and take the "mock" exam. Of course they whined about coming in, but I just put on my stern teacher face and just went on like, "of course you'll come in. Why would you NOT come and sit for an exam? (on the weekend, early in the morning, using your brain before it has woken up?)" ... on the inside I was wondering how many would show up. Well, 23 of the 28 showed up (woot woot).

They did not do as well as I would have liked, but on the bright side, they made silly mistakes that if they could fix, they would have boosted their scores to passing and getting college credit. They'll be working on that this week. I felt like I had to walk a fine line on Monday cheering them on to step up to the plate, and admonishing them for not studying harder before. It seems to be the culture of this particular school for most (but definitely not all) students to just do the bare minimum and not put out any extra effort to excel.

I had a discussion in the work room with a teacher who said, "no student is a competitor any more". He basically seemed to think that it's pointless to try to get them to work hard. I can't believe that. You can't just discount a whole generation of people, and say that they'll never improve. There has to be a magic combination of things that you do as a teacher such that various actions on your part will affect various students to do better. I've seen it. I haven't seen it consistently, but that's my battle to overcome, to "do better and to improve".

Cool Facts

We found a great way of getting a sense of relative sizes of BIG things today. One of my students told me that she was reading her math text the other night. First I thought she was joking, like, "I was sooooo bored, I actually read my math book". But she was serious (woot woot). She mentioned a cool thing she learned.

In our text they compare a million (10^6), a billion (10^9), and a trillion (10^12) with the following questions. Now, I couldn't figure out a fast way of putting a drop down menu with the answers here, so I'll put the answers in the comment section.

1. How much time is encompassed in a million seconds? (in hours or days or years) ..... don't use a calculator, just go by gut feeling.

2. How much time is encompassed in a billion seconds? (again, no calculator ....)

3. How much time is encompassed in a trillion seconds? (drop that calculator!)

How cool is THAT .... and how mind bending.

Two Nice Surprises

In the last 2 days I have "had to" be present at things I was not too sure were going to be worth the time (and or money). .... But having reached the ripe old age of 41 and having been in these situations before, I always hold a glimmer of hope that I'll either learn something or be pleasantly surprised or something good will come of it (since this always seems to happen). Well. It happened twice in the last 2 days.

On Tuesday, our 11th graders were not testing for TAKS, so we had a motivational speaker come to the gym to try to hold their attention for a good part of 90 minutes. If you've ever been around high schoolers, you know that's quite a challenge. We've had "motivational" speakers in the past, and I've been disappointed in the kids' behavior and had to search hard myself for the motivation in the speech. Not so this time. Joseph Jennings came and had their undivided attention for as long as he chose to speak. He's a former gang member, and now he travels the country talking to kids. He was articulate, real, honest, and carried a lot of good messages for the kids. He discussed what it meant to be a "man" or a "woman". He talked about respect. He talked about choices. LOVED. HIM.

And tonight we had a substitute for tap dancing. Part of me wanted to sneak out, but then the more mature part of me kicked that part in the butt and stayed for class. What fun. We laughed; we learned; we swiveled our hips to do double pull backs. A nice way to end a great day.

On a side note. A student said to me today, "you should write a blog". Hmmmm. I said something noncommittal. Actually, I've told nobody that I blog. Not even my husband (though I've hinted at it). I guess when I started, I figured it wasn't worth mentioning because I felt like a poser. Now, after a year and change, part of me feels like if I DID tell someone, and they knew me, and I knew they were reading, I'd start self-editing and not be "true". Who knows.

Questioning & Learning

I love when you are teaching and the students are not getting it (okay, THAT'S not the part I love) and then through some encounter with a student you realize what their misconception is. ... Then you totally revamp how you are presenting the concept, and they then all say, "Ohhhhhhh!".

For example, we (they) are learning sequences and have to deal with subscripted variables: an, an+1, an-1 ... I kept mentioning that the "n's" just indicate where you are in the sequence, but once they tried to apply it, they'd mess up. So .... "n" is the place you are (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) and "an" is the number in that place.

Well, I finally saw today that a student was mixing up things like an+1 and an +1 **, and then worked around to clear up THAT with the class. Ohhhhhhhh.

** let's say your sequence is:
n: 1,2,3,4,.....
an: 5,10,15,20,.....

Then a1 = 5, a2 = 10, if n = 4 then an = 20 and an-1 = 15 and an-1 = 19.

From the TMI Department

Friday we were off from school, so I scheduled 2 doctor's appointments - a mammogram and a skin check. I was actually surprised they were open on Good Friday, this being a fairly religious region of the country.

I've never had a mammogram before, so I was a wee bit hesitant based on what I've heard. Some woman had mentioned a funny article on how to prepare for the experience: slam your breast between the refridgerator door a few times / roll over it with your car in the garage ...

It wasn't so bad, except for in the beginning when I was trying to make conversation with the person while she was visually checking out my breasts and then switching out plates on the machine. There were 2 different black plates, and she made a decision to switch them out. I asked what the difference was, and she said, "that one (the one she took out) is for larger breasted women. This one (the one she'd use on me) is for .... medium sized breasts (hmmmm, maybe small was the adjective she wanted?)".

Then on to the skin doctor. I've had this little scab on my nose and under my eye for about a year or more and they never go away, so I'm thinking "skin cancer" in a it-can't-really-be scenario. Turns out it's kitosis (?) and IF skin cancer develops, that's where it would manifest, so he recommended me freezing them off. He had a canister of liquid nitrogen (?) and did some spurts on my face, and that was that. WELL. I guess it takes a while for them to slough off. After a couple of days, now I look like I have small boils on my face. .... Oh yes, that's my wife/teacher/friend .... the one with the boils.

Bullying

I guess it comes in ALL forms and at all ages. I usually associate bullying with elementary or middle school and with some toughie kid amassing a crowd of sheep and being mouthy and mean to a smaller kid. Not so, apparently. I have a senior boy in class (have had him for 3 years in various levels) who's thin, has curly, longish hair, plays the guitar, and always wears old rock band tee-shirts. Apparently, he'd had enough of some kid harrassing him and (as I was told) tripping him in this other class, that he took a ruler and whacked the bully. A fight ensued (I can't see this kid fighting) .... the big burly teacher wrestled the bully off "my" kid. The bully allegedly BIT the teacher's forearm ..... and so on.

A part of me is all adult about it (you should just walk away .... the kid's a jerk, ignore him ...), and a part of me is rooting for the little kid (good for you for standing up for yourself). Then I also see that these 2 kids are still in the same class for the rest of the year, so .... how's that going to work in the aftermath.

Comes Around / Goes Around

I'm part of a scholarship committee at school where we look at a list of candidates for various scholarships and pick a recipient. This past week the list included a person who is a BIG whiner in my class. Everything needs to be complained about. There's too much homework. It's too hard. I expect too much. I never help. Help me. Help me. Help me. ... Most of the time I'm pretty patient, though the other day I told this student that they complained too much, and they were "shocked", and said that it wasn't true. Hmmmm.

Well, this student's name came up for a scholarship. With a wee bit of hesitation, I mentioned the situation and also said that I didn't know if that should be a factor. There were also a handful of other kids on the list, all of whom were wonderful. Another teacher's reaction to my statement was, "yes, I've heard that a lot about this student". .... This student was not the recipient of the scholarship.

How does one distinguish between doing the kid a favor and telling them that their behavior is atrocious and just being "mean spirited" when telling the kid they're annoying? I mean, it's still a learning process to them. If no one tells them things are "wrong", then they'll just go on acting like they do because they don't know any better.

Elliptical Pool Table Update

Sheesh, it's so chaotic this project thing .... Today my goal for the class was to get a template for our pool table (one template for each of 3 classes). We discussed strategies, I had groups experiment on large paper, we voted as a class on best template. ... This took all period. In my mind, I thought it would only take part of the period. ... I guess I'm a slow learner. Meanwhile there was a lot of down time of them just goofing off (some of them). That's the part I dislike. I guess that's what you learn from after you do it the first time, and then you improve upon it the next time. Maybe written instructions with some pointed questions for them to finish if they are not participating in the template making?

We did get one template per class, so now the transferring of the pattern will be next. ... Other than that, rush rush rush as usual.

Asking Nicely

We STILL (shocking!) have problems with students whipping out their cell phones willy-nilly throughout the school day with nary a concern about the "rule" not to. It's a case of picking your battles, but most likely that contributes to the problem because the kids most likely see the inconsistency.

The rule is that if we see your cell phone, we take it away and at the end of the day you can pick it up. If it happens more than once, then your parents have to come pick it up. It's challenging to enforce in the hallways with students you don't know who ignore your "request" to give you their phone, and they just walk away. Whatever.

Yesterday, as a "good" student was walking into my class, I see him text messaging. "Put your cell phone away, please". Usually that's enough. But then I see him a minute later still on his phone, so I picked it up.

"Can I have it back at the end of class?"
"You can pick it up at the end of the day."
Class resumes.
At the end of class, he comes up to me in a fake (maybe my take on things) contrite voice, "I'm sorry I was text messaging. Can I please have my phone back?"

And this is the problem I have. I REEEEEEEEEEEEEeeaaaaaallllly dislike that type of manipulation. Just because you ask nicely for something, does not mean you should get it ("I really like your necklace. Can I please have it?") I also dislike that he thinks it should work. Ew. Needless to say (or is it?) that I kept his phone until the end of the day. ... With the state of techno-teens these days, I'm guessing that I caused some short-term DTs (shaking, wandering thoughts, anxiety,...)

Ouch on 2 Counts

We went to a movie last night .... on a school night .... I feel so decadent. "V for Vendetta", and it was excellent, though I felt like an old lady because I kept plugging my ears at the LOUD parts. I think they were blasting the sound, and my already-deafish ears were protesting. (or maybe it was the logarithm activities we've done in the past where we discussed decibels and how they are related to logs, and I was remembering tidbits of information).

In other Texas school news: TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS TAKS. (It's soon time for our 4 day exit-exam fiesta. Ey yi yi yi yi yi).

Count Down

I can't believe there's only 7 1/2 weeks left of school. Too exciting, and at the same time, I wonder how we'll fit all the curriculum in. I guess it all works out usually.

My eyes hit upon excess 3/4" shelving left over from our (okay my husband's) shelf making of 2 weekends ago. Hmmmmm. Elliptical pool table material. Now I'm thinking we (they) can figure out how to draw a "perfect" ellipse on it. We cut it out with a jigsaw (okay, someone jigsaw-savvy does). Pop out the center, and voila, pool table for marbles or such. Sheesh. After all this, I hope it works. Maybe if we make the foci BIG ENOUGH :) ...

I'm SUPER excited about planning a solo trip to Europe for this June. I don't know how excited my husband is. He's not that thrilled with traveling too much since he does it for work, but he kept saying he'd come with me. But I don't want to have a non-excited companion. We'll see how it all works out. The current plan is: London, Brussels, Netherlands, Home in about 7-8 days. Who knows what the final plan will be, but I'm having fun reading books about it and looking on the web.

Elliptical Pool Table

We're learning conic sections in precalculus, and so far it's just been 2 days on each (circles, ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas). We've covered the first 3. That was the bulk of how I was going to present it: create the conics with either paper folding or strings and pencils, and then get to the equation and then "work them to death". THEN. I kept reading about these elliptical pool tables where if a ball is at one focus, then any where you hit it, it will bounce off the wall and pass through the other focus. I think that's the coolest thing. I mentioned it to my 3 classes, and they got excited, so I think we're going to try and make one for each class to test this thing out. I told them that then we could be pool sharks and place bets with nonsuspecting non-mathies.

My latest idea is a thick wood piece left over from shelves, the inside part hollowed out in an ellipse shape, and then the thickness can be the "walls" of the table and we can use a marble as a pool ball. I'm so curious to see if this will work out.

On a funny side note. When I started the conic sections, I mentioned the properties of a parabola where if you put a microphone at the focus or a light bulb at the focus it has special "powers" because everthing "bounces" through there. Then on Friday one of my students had mentioned that he was at an electronics store and he saw this music contraption where it had a dome (I guess in the shape of a paraboloid) and a person would be the only one to hear the music. He said he was then thinking about what we talked about in class, and he joked that he called people over and gave them a lesson on parabolas.

Red Vis-a-Vis Pens

Oh my. There I am expounding on ellipses on the overhead and switching pens to make various components of the ellipse stand out, when a big blob of red blood-looking stuff plops out of the pen and onto the slide. Ew. Toss the pen. Continue talk. Expound expound expound. Another red pen. Another big plop of red oozes from the seams of the red pen. Another toss.

This has happened before. And only with the red pens. What's the deal? ... And another thing. Wouldn't it be nice to buy colors individually or to mix and match to make your own set: purple, black, brown, dark green, darker red (bloodless), blue, fuschia, ...

Did I mention that we looked up the phrase "vis-a-vis" one time in class and it means "face-to-face"? How appropriate.

Footnote: when I looked at my piling up slides later, the red blob was transformed into a Rorschach test sample.

Chatty Cathies

I've had some (most) of the kids in my precalculus class for either 1 or 2 previous years, so they know each other. They've been in every seating arrangement possible, so they know each other. They're all friends, so they know each other. Therefore, yap yap yap yap. Sheesh were they chatty yesterday.

We've started ellipses, and I was having them create them yesterday with string and two pencils as "foci" and scratch paper. I started having them tie the string to the "foci" and work it that way, BUT a student showed me what she learned on Bill Nye the Science Guy (sp?) .... (love him). You make a loop with the string and put the foci inside and keep the string taut, and you get the same, neater result. Yay for learning new things.

Preparing for AP Exam

We've (they've) started preparing for the May 3rd AP Calculus exam. I'm taking old tests and having them do problems at home and then discussing them in class. The ringing in my ears is from the whining about how long it took and how hard it was and how tricky the test makers were trying to be. Oh my. ... I'm donning my, "... AND?" attitude to hopefully get across that I expect them to do it anyway and that they CAN do it and that their score is now a reflection of how much they're willing to put into it.

Now of course there are those that are doing everything they're supposed to do. Go them. I just have to get the others the step up to the plate.

Balance

Last week was crazy with kids wanting to stay after school for make ups and tutoring and such. Also, as seems to happen frequently, as the week went on, I got less and less sleep. I'd mentioned earlier in the week to one student that I'd be able to stay REALLY late on Friday (6pm? 8pm? jokingly 10pm). Well, as the week went on, I got more burnt out and tired and just wanted to leave at 5pm on Friday to visit with my friend over a cup of tea.

As the kid starts to stay after school on Friday at 4:15, I mention this. He gets this hang dog look on his face, "but you said you could stay until 6 or 8 or 10". I didn't cave. I just said plans had changed and I could only stay until 5. It was like kicking a puppy dog. I felt like a heel, but I still was firm and practically pulled the makeup exam out of his hands at 5pm and rushed off and felt bad about it.

Then on Monday, I had to leave about 5pm to get to yoga on time (again, that gives them 45 minutes). But one kids comment was, "yes, she has to go to tap". Blach! Guilt, or was he just being funny?

I don't think I should feel bad. I get to work at 7:30 in the morning, and usually help kids at 8 if they ask and I don't have meetings. So I leave at 5 or 6. I think I'm just being my own worst critic. Yes. That's it. My own worst critic.

Differentiating Instruction

I've known for a while now that there are some kids in my class that think/know I'm going too slow for them or too easy or whatnot. It's only my 2nd year teaching the precalculus at this school (so still tweaking things) and my 1st year teaching calculus (so still treading water), so I never seem to have enough time to cater to all levels in my classes.

Well, yesterday (Thursday) was a semi-success story. In precalculus I have 2 boys (at least) that basically quickly do what we're doing in class, then spend the rest of the period amusing themselves with various math things they come up with on their own ... or they do other work, but they REALLY like math. So, while the rest of the class was reviewing for a logarithms/exponents quiz, I gave them 3 "hard" problems. Well, wouldn't you know it, they worked on them and worked on them yesterday, then kept coming back after class and between classes all yesterday and today to see if they were close or to clear up some misunderstanding or to tell me that they finally got the answer to one of the problems. They're STILL working on 2 of the other problems (Friday). Yay.

I also handed out a "killer" sudoku puzzle for them to work on after the quiz if they all prefered (today), and that caught some kids' fancy. ... So all in all a good way to end the week. (except for the mouse poop I found in what I thought was a mouse proof container full of cookies and crackers for my UIL students).

Nice Visuals

We were chatting in the copy room while a science teacher was lamenting the fact that his students didn't "do for themselves" in the learning department. He said, "I'm spoon feeding and spoon feeding them, but it's still dribbling down their faces". We got a good chuckle out of that truism.

I'm also listening to a funny book-on-tape in which the author is recalling his childhood and describing how much he hated canned peas and carrots that his mother served him while growing up. He described the peas as having the color of monkey vomit, and the cubed carrots as being so ashamed to being called carrots that they shrunk in at the sides.

Drowning

Sheesh. I can't seem to get out from under heaps of paperwork since I've come back from break. Just the usual - a ton of papers to grade, progress reports to go out, 3 different classes to prep for each day, AVID tasks to complete, friends' birthdays I want to acknowledge .... I think that MAYBE today I saw the sunlight through all the pulp.

Chaperoning was eye-opening. You couldn't ask for a nicer group of kids. They were very polite, and we never had to worry about them getting into trouble. The "worst" thing that happened was when they started getting goofy at a semi-upscale restaurant where they dipped their fingers into the water glass and then swirled them around the rim to make a piercing sound. I almost disowned them, but if that was the worst, then, whew.

We visited Columbia, NYU, Princeton, UPenn, Swarthmore, Goucher, & Johns Hopkins. The kids got to sit in on classes, take a tour, listen to information sessions, talk to current students and generally get a sense of what was "needed" to get into and be successful in college. I was thoroughly wowed by Swarthmore. Everyone was so involved in life and passionate about everything. They were very ecologically and politically and socially conscious. The campus was gorgeous. Everyone was friendly and helpful AND (the best part), the food was great (they even had daily vegetarian selections). They had very active internship and externship and study abroad programs. What more could you want in a college?

Chaperoning Trip

Well, all 12 of us (2 adults, 10 students) are off to the northeast for our whirlwind, 7 day, 5 college visit tour. Sub plans are ready, I'm packed and sleep-deprived. Hopefully, I can sleep on the planes without snoring or drooling too much. I have 5 of the traveling students in class, so they'll be happy to know that I brought their Thursday & Friday homework with me :).

The kids are excited, but I guess I'm too much of a (nonmom) "mom" because I'm worrying about a pack of 12 of us walking around NYC. And can you imagine Times Square? There's no moving room as it is, how are we going to all stick together? Oh well, deep breaths and optimism.

I tried to pack light, as per Rick Steve's suggestion for traveling. I think I was successful, but I haven't measured the bag I used to see if it was a 9"x14"x22" carry on like he suggested for ANY trip.

Fraction Song

Okay, since I'm sooooo proud of it, and it does seem to work and it DOES stick in your head and bubble up at odd moments, here is my fraction song. The song is in bold, and the "tune" is in parentheses


(Jingle bells* jingle bells*jingle all the way)
Adding fractions*get a common*denominator

(Oh what fun*it is to ride)
Add the top*the fun won’t stop

(In a one horse open sleigh*hey)
The bottom stays the same*hey

(Dashing through the snow*in a one horse open sleigh)
Fractions are your friends*Loyal to the end

(Over the fields we go*laughing all the way*ha ha ha)
If you treat them right*No math jail tonight*ha ha ha

(Bells on bob tails ring*making spirits bright)
When you multiply*Here is what you do

(What fun it is*to laugh and sing)
Times the top*Times the bottom too

(A sleighing song tonight*oh!)
Now you are a pro*oh!

(Jingle bells*jingle bells*jingle all the way)
When you divide*Flip the second*Then you multiply

(Oh what fun*it is to ride)
When you divide*Flip the second

(In a*one horse*open*sleigh)
Then You*Mul*Ti*Ply (sung badly and off key with flair)

Cutting (mid) Outcome

I quizzed all day Friday.

First period: 12 out of 21 were present, many, if not all seniors. We mentioned how disappointed we were with the "cutters" and what their consequences would be.

Second period: I had some 5th period students ask if they could come take the quiz early (3rd) ... I guess so they could skip out early. No.

Third period: 12 out of 21 were present. Most of the 9 absent were on legitimate outings (track, baseball, business contest...). Some that were there .... I knew were there partly because I was all stern about consequences that week. One girl had earlier begged me to take the quiz early (1st period) at one point and at another point had said she was spending the day with her mother. Hmmmm. Anyway, she showed up.

Fifth period: 100% attendance. Woo Hoo. 8 out of 8 :).

Last 2 periods? Most kiddies there. I know for a fact that some of the absentees were NOT on legitimate outings. I've been pondering consequences. Usually they have retests on all assessments (I know, but .... that's the culture). This time I'm leaning towards the following. Handing out a note when they return that says that if they can prove to me they were not cutting, then they can make up the quiz at no consequence. Otherwise, they've earned a zero, and can take the quiz (harder version?) and I'll average the 2 grades. I want to be fair to the students that did the right thing and showed up.

Senior Cut Day

Apparently, tomorrow (Friday) is "senior cut day". Hmph. And I only found out about it because I announced a test in all my classes last week, and a kiddy said, "but it's ...... ".

I don't want to condone cutting, so I'm probably shooting myself in the foot and making it harder to get all kids ultimately tested, but I'm going through with it. .... And I guess it doesn't help that tons of OTHER kids will also be out for tennis, track, baseball, business club contests, .... . ... But it's too late now. Hmmmm, wonder how I'll deal in the morning. I did give them the big scary lecture about how if you cut during a test, you get a zero. bla bla bla. Let's see what happens.

Tim Bits*

*(doughnut holes from Tim Hortons in Ontario)

* The girl who hasn't been showing up in my first period class for the last 2 months? Her father is dying, she's not living at home, money's tight, she's just trying to get by. I finally saw her today, and she's as good as can be expected and is on the right track to graduate. Her counselor nicely dropped her from my class so she won't suffer the GPA nosedive.

* If you're listing 3 things to your class, and you hold up your index, middle, and ring fingers. Make sure not to check off the 1st and last items by bringing down the corresponding fingers.

* Sometimes all a student needs is a wee bit more one-on-one attention, and they FINALLY get how to add fractions.

* Even seniors like to sing goofy songs about fractions (to the jingle bells tune) in class.

Inservice Choices

Monday we had an inservice. We had discussions with our "smaller learning communities". We were treated to a performance by our drumline and had our memories refreshed about emergency procedures (lock down vs. freeze "drill"). Then we spent the rest of the afternoon planning a unit to ultimately do but for today to present for a gallery walk (you write 2 questions you want other teachers to comment on, and they walk around and make suggestions and such about those 2 things).

It was useful, and for me, isolated. Usually most of our department goes out for lunch, and lunch is usually 1.5 hours (very nice when compared to our usual 45 minutes in which 15 minutes is used up for a duty). But. On Monday, I was feeling like I could better spend that time finishing up chores and making homework sheets and printing out grades for advisory and such. I went to get a quick sandwich (yum, veggie delight with cream cheese and avocado and veggies) to bring back and worked through lunch. Man did I get a lot done. Then in the afternoon when we were planning our lessons, I happened again to be working alone. I finished early and spent the rest of the time again doing chores.

On the one hand, I like going out to lunch with teacher friends. It helps build a cohesive department and it's stress relief and it's fun. On the other hand, I just saved myself (all day) about 1.5 hours of work I'd have to make up at some other point (usually in a rush and stressed about finishing on time). Hmmmm, tough call.

"Jealousy" as Impetus

When I taught in NJ, there was a large Jewish segment of the population, and thus we had several 3 or 4 day weekends sprinkled throughout the school year. There was also a teacher's convention weekend, and a long president's day weekend, so we were looking a tons of opportunities to take off and travel somewhere. It also didn't hurt that Newark was a hub and flying somewhere usually meant just one plane flight to your destination. I remember one holiday weekend I traveled solo to Seattle, stayed at a B&B, wandered around town, and had the best time.

This is not the case down here. Most of our weeks are 5 day, and once a month the kids get off while we have inservice. I'M GOING THROUGH TRAVEL WITHDRAWAL. To top it off, my husband travels a ton for work, and he has no desire to hop on a plane for a weekend somewhere. To doubly top it off, "hopping on a plane" on Friday after school is infeasible as there are most likely always connecting flights. ... In addition lately I seem to be hearing of everyone taking a vacation somewhere (that doesn't include visiting family or going to conferences). Just plain travel (HAH!, I almost typed "plane travel"). I've also just happened upon Rick Steve's travel show on Saturday mornings while he tempts me with Denmark and Spain and such. ... I have travel envy; refine that; I have "solo" travel envy.

Here's my vow to myself. This summer, I will travel (alone) to somewhere that I've never been before. Europe or US? Europe or US? Hmmmmm, a fun thing to think about for the next few months.

"Jokes"

I like to make my classes roll their eyes, so today I told a joke I'd just read that had a good effect:

What's the difference between boogers and brussel sprouts? ... Kids will eat boogers.

Or another of my favorites ... whenever we're doing a problem involving x and y, and I prompt them for an answer, and the answer happens to be y ..... when they respond, "y" to my question, I reply, "because I asked you!".

Or when they're finished with whatever they're practicing, and someone calls out, "I'm done" .... I call back, "Stop it. You're not dumb" .... and then they say, "no, I'm finished" .... to which I HAVE to say, "oh, I thought you were American."

Ar ar ar. A wee bit of humor to get through the stressful times.

Moneyed & Not Moneyed

We have a diverse school - racially and economically. On the one hand I feel like a broken record sometimes: "put that cell phone away". "turn off your cell phone". "give me your cell phone". ... Now, I have to give a disclaimer. I don't have a cell phone. I don't want a cell phone. I hardly like to talk on the phone as it is, so I really don't want to be available ALL the time for people to reach me. So ... maybe I'm a bit biased, but what IS it about cell phones that make the students think that they HAVE to make whatever call/message it is RIGHT NOW? Everything turns into an instant emergency that has to be taken care of at this instant.

Then on the other hand I have students that drop various conversational tidbits into our everyday discussions that inform me that they're poor and sometimes don't have enough to eat, or at least enough to eat healthily. I just want to give them a grocery store gift card and say, "here, here take it and eat and be well". I mean, maybe I should (and I don't or haven't), ... how culpable are we if we know a person is suffering, and we have the means to stop it at least temporarily and yet we don't.

I can "hear" the rationalizations of why not to .... you can't help everyone, it's not your job/place/duty... but if I have the means, ...?

Anyhow, onto math (everyone's FAVORITE subject), my precal classes have now entered a simple (saved) program into their calculators that they'll build on tomorrow to "move" a line with the arrow keys. WooHoo. ... AND, a fraction success story. Some of the kids I had last year (to whom I taught a fraction song), that I have again this year TOTALLY did not complain, and TOTALLY got right to work on a hairy fraction problem I gave them today that involved variables and fractions within fractions and such where you had to solve for x. I'm so proud of them.

Vector Application

I'm in the middle of showing my precalculus students how vectors are used to move objects in programming to make (say) a video game (or maybe that's "old school" and so what should I say, "xbox game"? ...).

Last week I had them work through a word problem that stepped them through the basics. So here we have the reading skills come into play again. They had to really work at parsing through information to see what a diagram meant and what was meant by notation. Then today we did some basic programming on the graphing calculator. They're so psyched when a message they coded to be displayed actually gets displayed. WooHoo. ... So far we're having fun.

Of course Tuesday is our ELA TAKS test, so most/all teaching gets put on hold. This is our state test for graduation/NCLB.

Calculus Cubed

I have a crazy suspicion that I'm becoming one of those annoying people that has to insert a particular word/experience/fill-in-the-blank into several conversations every day. My word is "calculus". I think I may be getting tired of listening to myself. Note to self: you may not utter the "c" word all weekend. ... I guess I'm just obsessing about it because it's new and is giving my brain a great workout and is a nice challenge. (okay, weekend starts NOW, ..(calculus)... no NOW!)

I had one student come for help after school and another to make up a quiz. The one who had to make up the quiz is in my 1st period class, and she's hit or miss on whether she makes it to class every day. Well. It turns out that she's responsible for getting her brother up and out of the house, and he's super sleepy, and so some days she misses the bus and has to walk the 30 minutes to school and doesn't make it in time. Ackh. The things these kiddies have to go through.

The other student was coming for help with vectors, which we're studying in precal_ _ _ _ _. She had a breakthrough in her comprehension. And then she started talking about how they had "learned" this in physics earlier on in the year and how she was having a hard time then, so she was a little worried when we started covering it.

I loved what she said ... and I want to keep it fresh in my mind so that I can be mindful in my classes. She said that in her physics class there are these "geniuses", so every time the teacher would ask a question, they would quickly blurt out the answer, and then (her impression) the teacher would think that the whole class must have understood, so he would move on.

I try to have different ways of kids answering questions:
"think to yourself about the answer"
"let others think about it"
"wait 15 seconds before you answer"
"quietly tell your neighbor the answer so that spies from other groups can't hear you"
"let me see a show of thumbs, up for yes, down for no ..."

Hopefully, I don't fall into the same trap (too often??) as who she was talking about.

It Was the Best/Worst of Times...

Today it seemed like fight upon fight broke out at lunch time (full moon? or I thought that was a few nights ago...). Apparently, it got so ridiculous that we went on lock down and extra cops were called and we made the news. Blach. Bad press for our school due to some goofballs.

This evening I went to a performance by our precision dance team. They were spectacular. Apparently, at a recent citywide (?) competition, they brought home heaps of awards. Yay.

Today was a good "differentiating instruction" day for me. I polled my calculus students individually (the ones that were really struggling, and the ones that were finished way before anyone else) to see how they want to proceed. I made appointments with 3 of the strugglers to basically get an individualized plan going for them to reteach them everything. ... One of the "breezers" said he was fine with the pace and didn't want extra stuff piled on him. My other "breezer" said he'd like to learn about matrices. That was from left field. After a wee bit of prodding, I found out he wants to do computer animation, and it involves matrices. Yay. Good thing I've worked with matrices and with programming. I'll have something to offer him.

Great tip from one of the recent workshops I've been to. Make a "group" of e-mail addresses from the parents of your students in a class, and then you can keep them all informed by sending one e-mail periodically to let them know when tests/quizzes/projects are coming up and such. This seems like it would be an effective idea as I already get help in getting late homeworks in from my periodic e-mailing home of progress reports.

I heart Valentine's Day

H.S. Math Teacher's Equation:
2.14 + chocolate^6 + teens + high school hormones + bell schedule not working correctly = LOTS OF DEEP BREATHS BY TEACHER

Advisory Student's Question to said (known to be married) teacher:
"Does it get boring sleeping in the same bed with the same person for 11 years, miss?"

Said teacher's reaction to another class when one of my students put up their 2 ft. "dancing monkey" on my overhead and pushed the button so that the monkey started swiveling its hips and singing to the song "I'm too sexy for my shoes":
uncontrolled laughter

Math Workshop

I've been so lucky this year to be able to attend a variety of workshops. This past Friday and Saturday I went to one in San Antonio given by the College Board. It's amazing to be surrounded by such excellence in teaching. It invigorates me and makes me strive to always improve.

Interesting notes:

One woman was obviously much loved and sought after for her teaching advice and talks (and it's obvious why). But. It was highly awkward when I was sitting there before one of her talks, and another teacher went up to her and was gushing about how she loved EVERYTHING this woman did. Gush, gush, gush. eek.

We were staying on the 19th floor of the hotel, and at 4:44am, a loud voice comes over the intercom indicating an alarm had been sounded and to stay calm and await further instructions. Then a loud alarm went off. These 2 things happened about 20 times each. My roommate and I were of the mind, "great, a false alarm", and waited for it to go off. Apparently, others started the trek down the stairs to the first floor only to come back up again. Hmmmm, who knows who was "right".

I'm not much of a teacher for "games" in the classroom. I can't manage it so that I think they're learning at the same time as just goofing off. I went to a "games" talk, and now I'm a convert. She explained it such that her "games" ... (one example is a polar coordinate version of Battleship) had the students doing basically 48 problems (or so) and having the information stick in their heads and having them remember it for the quiz and beyond.

TMI (times four)

TMI #1: I was doing my "tardy student sitting in the cafeteria" duty and circulating and glancing at what the kids were doing as I was walking. One student was reading a book. As an avid bookworm and an avid nosey person, I peeked at the heading on one of the pages (looked like a novel), and I was about to engage him in conversation to see if he liked the book, when I read it: G-Spot. Okay, walk on by, walk on by.

TMI #2: 1st question a student asks me in class before the bell rings, "what does copulate mean?". Ahem. "Why are you asking? ... and are you serious?" ... "well, some student said a bad word in my last class, and the teacher said, 'oh, you must mean copulate.' "

TMI #3: A great student has been absent a heap in my class, and comes back today to say (s)he was having heaps of doctor's appointments and just found out (s)he was bipolar and ..... heaping on more TMI. la la la la la la la

TMI #4: I was helping a junior (senior?) after school to prepare for our state exit exam, and as the hour went on, I realized he had no clue on how to solve simple equations, but could be a whiz on the calculator and "finding the answer" (though not knowing what it means). Boo! Now that's scary.

Rapport

This is my 3rd year of teaching at this school, and I've taught a variety of math levels, so there are some students I'm teaching for the 3rd year (or 2nd year). I have some "3rd year" kids in calculus, and I have some "3rd year" kids in precalculus. Don't get me wrong, I like my calculus group of kids, but I seem to have a better rapport with the group of kids that I now have in precalculus (even last year with the same basic sets of kids ... one level down).

We get off on these goofy tangents, and they find the corny jokes I tell them funny, and they even share goofy ones with me. I'm wondering what it is. It can't be the age level (because of last year's experience), it can't be the content level (ditto). Maybe it's just what it is. But I know I'll miss this particular set of kids when they graduate.

Okay, a shared example:

(put your index fingers up in the air, and twirl them continuously throughout this "joke")
me: knock knock
you: who's there
me: woo
you: ____________

(see what I mean? corny)

Two Updates

The weekend workshop was hmmmmm. It was a college professor talking at us the whole 3 hours (with slides of photocopies of a paper he wrote, i.e. small print) discussing the fact that to be good teachers, we should talk with the students or assess in some way, to see where their level of (mis)understanding is, so that we can know how to proceed. ... And I don't want to sound snarky, but ... we already know that. Maybe this is new to college professors because they're not so much taught how to teach as how to do research. Oh well, I did get 3 good things out of the talk.

We picked the 10 students to go on the spring break field trip and to be mentors next year for seniors applying to colleges. It was a tough choice as you had to balance out who would benefit from the trip to who would be a good mentor to who actually put out a concerted effort in their application.

Tutoring

On Wednesday I tutored an Algebra 1 student who was just starting to learn how to solve 2 step equations (solve: 5x + 3 = 13). ... I've taught older kids for so long, and I just daily take it for granted that "my" kids can do that without thinking, that I forget how much they know and how hard it must have been when they first started out learning such things. It was refreshing and a nice reminder that everyone has to start somewhere, and it doesn't just come naturally.

Of course my precalculus kiddies were struggling today with:
Solve sqrt(x-5) - sqrt(x) = 7

Everyone is struggling at a different level. ... except for us perfect people (cough cough).

Yap Yap Yap

Sometimes I realize that I talk too much. For example, every couple of weeks or so I hand around a grade sheet (with student #s, not names) for them to see what they're missing or where they're currently at gradewise. Then before I hand it out I always go into my spiel about, "I'm passing around the grade sheet ... look for your zeros .... time is running out ... look quickly and pass it on ... make sure everyone in your group sees it before you ...".

Oh my goodness, I've just realized. Be quiet and just pass it around. They can figure it out. That's what I "accidently" did yesterday, and then realized that was ideal.

New Seats

The seats in my classroom are arranged in groups of 4, and, of course, periodically I change their seating assignments. When I do so, they talk for about 3-4 minutes, and they have to learn everyone's name, and I throw out another question they're to pursue. Afterwards, we go around the class, and a group representative has to share with the class.

Past questions have been about: favorite ice cream, places they've visited, etc. Yesterday's question (which I think that now is my all-time favorite) was, "what's your earliest childhood memory?" There were some funny ones. One student said that he started a food fight in 1st grade and told us the circumstances behind that. Another girl said that when she was 4, she told her brother that he was adopted and made him cry. Another boy remembers being cold and pressing his hand against a hot iron. Hmmmm, I'm noticing a bad theme here.