Reason #s 245,365.6, .7 & .8 why I still teach.

First of all I want to welcome all the new people who have come by to visit my blog thanks to Carmi, Written, Inc. and his Thematic Photos.  Carmi, Peg Cherre, Mustang Sally & Kalei's Best Friend: Welcome, welcome, welcome!  You all get a virtual fruit basket, a bar of virtual bath soap and a virtual tuna casserole from the Welcome Wagon.  Enjoy.

Now, on to the meat of this post…

Almost 2/3 of my students this year were also my students last year, so I know them pretty well.  This one student, who showed very little interest in math last year came into my class this morning and asked me if we were going to have test today.

Me: “Why?  You planning on sluffing?”

Him: “No, I just feel like I have a math brain today.  I was hoping we were [having a test today].”

I had already noticed that he was working a lot harder this year, but was still surprised (happily) when he told me that he just felt like doing math this year.

Reasons .7 & .8:

This year I’m teaching an Algebra A/B class.  The class meets every day rather than every other day like all the other classes*.  It’s meant for the kids that struggle with math, despite having good attendance and behavior.  Since I had most of the 8th graders last year, I pretty much hand picked the class and it’s one of those classes a teacher looks forward to.

Two of the students in the class worked hard just to pull a C or D in my class last year.  They killed themselves just trying to understand PreAlgebra.

Today they were simplifying square roots, and understanding it.  Not just plugging it into the calculator and getting 8.9442719, but doing things like √80 = 4√5.  Phenomenal.

Yes, today was one of those A+ days that make it worth having to work a couple days a week at the Chevron to make ends meet.

*We are on the block schedule, which means every student has 8 classes altogether, but only 4 meet on any given day.  They alternate days (A day, B day), so each class meets every other day.  On the other hand, my Algebra A/B class meets on both A and B days, so I see them every school day.

Ok, this doesn’t quite fit the bill, but I’m gonna sneak it in.

When I read that this week’s Thematic Photograph from Written, Inc was going to have something to do with numbers and letters, these pictures jumped right out the dark recesses of my brain.  Alas, when the actual criteria for the picture was posted I found out that the picture was supposed to actually have numbers and/or letters in it.  (Expletive deleted), I really wanted to use these pictures.

After much arguing with myself (2.3 seconds) I decided they were the pictures I’m going to use anyhoo.  Hopefully I will be forgiven for living up to the spirit of the law, if not necessarily the letter of the law.  So, here are my number pictures:

A little over a decade ago I borrowed a few digital cameras for my classroom and sent out groups of kids and simply told them “Go take pictures of 2/3”, or 1/4 or whatever fraction their group got assigned.  I told them that they were going to have to be able to explain their pictures to the class, so they wouldn’t just go take random pictures.  Here’s three of the ones that I (think I) remember the explanations for.  Keep in mind that it was a long time ago, and I don’t think I’ll be able to explain it exactly the way they did, and give me a little leeway on the quality of the pictures, digital cameras were in their infancy at the time.

3/4 – because there are 4 things altogether and 3 of them are the same.

1/2 – because it’s a picture of half of my car. (Car #41, I’ve had 14 since then.)

And my all time favorite: 2/3 – because there are 3 there, and only 2 of them are completely in the picture.

Saw this at work Monday night.

And you thought I couldn’t sing.

Seriously, that really is me. (Yeah, right!)

Love is in the air, da, da, da, da, da, ???

Her:	wassup gangsta
Him:	Hi!
Her:	i love you I don’t know how to explain this feeling that I have for you
Him:	u to
Her:	i knew it… I see the way you look at me can you feel the magic?!?
Him:	Oh ya
Her:	Your super cute i hella want you :)
Him:	you to

And they say teenage boys aren’t romantic.

Old people don’t have friends.

I was walking down the hall with a student of mine when another teacher passed and I waved and said “Hi”.  The student said “You can’t do that, old people don’t say “Hi” in the halls.”  A few feet later one of her friends passes and she waved and said “Hi”.  I asked how come she can say “Hi” and I can’t.  This is when she informed me “Old people don’t have friends, they’re supposed to spend all their attention on their jobs!”  I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

I laughed.

How to put a link into your comment (on Blogger)

I figured this out over the weekend.  Hope you find it useful.