Well, I missed last week so I thought I'd try and get back in the groove of my weekly post. I'm finding that it's harder to come up with funny, creative stories than I thought. My students are actually good students this year. I give them assignments and low and behold they do them in class without me having to hound them (for the most part). I have had a couple of comments/reactions that make you question yourself. In one day, in two different classes, I explained what we were going to do and I got the following responses: 10th grade - "Jesus Christ", 8th grade - "this sucks." Now, I quickly learned not to take things personally and I don't expect everyone to have math as their favorite subject, but I think it's fair to expect them to participate in the assignment or class. Anyway, I thought you might find this humurous and the next time a co-worker, or boss doesn't like what you've done, you can be thankful they don't react like a teenager.
On a more serious note, I somehow got wrangled into being a part of a 7th grade book study that meets during lunch on Friday's. The book we are reading is called "She Said Yes" about Cassie Bernall who was the girl at Columbine High, who, reports say, was confroted on whether she believed in God prior to being shot. She responed, "yes", thus the title of the book. The book is written buy her mom, and the first 40 pages are quite gripping. This is one of those events where I can say, "I remember what I was doing that day." Anyway, it's interesting to see how the students discuss the book and it's the first time I've really heard religious discussions in our school. So far, the book is not so much about whether she was a martyr or not, but about a teenage girl who was lost, depressed and mixed up in the wrong stuff before giving her life to Christ the impact it had on turning her life around. It's pretty cool and I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks.
Well, I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be trying to stay warm now that the temps have dropped into the 50's.
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3 comments:
Math skills should be pushed as much as reading and writing. Most of america is mathematically illiterate and proud of it. I remember a radio talk show on WEGL where they were discussing the SGA elections. One of the host started speaking about the outcomes in terms of fractions. The other guy stopped him saying saying something to the effect that he gets lost when people start talking in fractions. THis guy was mathematically illiterate and was proud of it. It will only hurt them in the long run if they don't appreciate math at the level they are at right now. How will they ever know what a mortgage rate or a annual percentage rate on a credit card means, or how to estimate how long it takes to pay off a loan. Math has got to be pushed in schools. Mr. D, your doing a great job in making math cool again.
Well, they'll just break out there TI-84 and use that for the rest of their life...WRONG. Thank you Larry for being the voice of reason. I'm standing strong, at least at the 8th grade level, and not letting them use calculators. People are like, "we should teach them to use the technology that's available." I'm like we should teach them to use the technology AFTER they know how to do it by hand. Actually, you'd be happy to know that we got a grant this year that can only be used on reading and math. I agree, people see or hear the word "fraction" and they look at it like it's plague.
Wait...did Larry say he actually listened to WEGL??
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