Zebras -- watch out!

It's been a while, the semester was a lot of work and I found myself too tired to share the stories. Most of them are forgotten if not recorded quickly.

This story, however, will never be forgotten because ... well, you'll see.

I was trying to get my freshmen students to understand the mathematical concept of domain, in situations that were non-mathematical. For example, where do fish live? It was surprisingly difficult with this particular group on this particular day.

I asked, "Where do zebras live?"
A kid says, sincerely, "In the zoo?"
Another kid said, "Zebras are mean."
Another, "We almost got a zebra, but didn't because they're mean."
Another kid, "Can zebras eat you?"
Me, "Yes."

I decided to share the story, actually was compelled, with my precalculus students. When I finished, a student was laughing really hard and said, "They're so stupid, zebras can't eat you unless you're already dead!"

True story!

Note I found...

Smart Paul versus Dumbass Paul

One of the immature freshmen boys I have has been a real pain in the butt all year. He's always off task, is a constant distraction and intensely energetic. Even getting this kid to do something as basic as writing something down is difficult. With kids like this, you just try to limit the damage they cause in class. Yet you don't want to exclude them...you always offer the opportunity to improve and change. Each day they have that opportunity. Each day they chose to do well or not.

The kid tried out for basketball and made the team, but never got to play because he was ineligible. His coaches reported that he was a constant distraction and menace during practice.

The other day this kid, Paul, asked if I thought he was smart. I answered honestly and said, "I have no idea. You've never done anything to show me if you're smart or not. All I know is that you're immature."

Apparently he did some thinking about that. He went out and bought a notebook, started taking notes and participating. He even went as far as to reprimand other students, saying (without sarcasm), "Come on guys, we've got work to do!"

I complimented him, saying I was glad to have Smart Paul in class and hoped that we'd seen the last of DumbAss Paul. He laughed and said that DumbAss Paul was gone for good." I knew better.

It lasted a day and a half. Then he began his old behaviors. I could see him struggling to do well, struggle to pay attention and do what he knew was required to be successful. He seemed to enjoy his brief success and wasn't willing to let it go to waste without a struggle.

I said, "Hey, looks like an epic battle between DumbAss Paul and Smart Paul. Who's gonna win?"

He said, "Smart Paul, for sure."

"That's who I'm rooting for!" Several other students said the same.

It became apparent that Smart Saul was losing. I mentioned as much. He said, "That's OK. Baskeball Paul is gonna beat 'em both."

A short while later, Smart Paul was dead and buried. I asked what happened to Smart Paul, mentioned what I'd noticed. He said, "No worries...basketball Paul will win!"

I asked, "Yeah? How many games has basketball Paul played? You better come up with something better!"

Check Your Phone

I was giving instruction when I noticed a student texting on his cell phone. Since I was giving instructions to the class I didn't stop to tell him to stop texting. When I finished, he looked up and asked the very question that was the point of my instruction. I told him to check his phone.

He did.

A few minutes later he says, "The answer's not there."

Weirdness.

Sometimes it's the Adults

The teacher sitting next to me is a nice lady. But she sits like a poodle on its haunches, "sitting pretty" for a treat.

The day before she smelled smoke coming from next door to her room yesterday, right before a pep rally. I asked her what kind of smoke, cigarettes or pot. She said, "I don't know the difference."

"You know what cigarettes smell like?"
"Yeah," she said.
"Was it that?"
"I don't really know anything about anything like that."

Anyhow, fast forward to today. We had a "professional development" day, all day today. It was surreal. We sat, for 8 hours, and were trained. We listened to people talk extensively about collaboration and sharing of ideas, techniques and so on. Good stuff those people were talking about.

This lady took out a note book and started writing down notes about what they were saying. They said the phrase, "Power Objectives" or something like that. She wrote that in HUGE letters, underlined it and colored around it.

Then the group really started talking about how collaboration was helping their school. This was 3 hours into the presentation, without a break. It's in the cafeteria. Your arms stick to the tables, not sure what that substance is!

My neighbor said, "Oh, I love collaboration."
I shared the sentiment, but commented, "We're not collaborating, we're talking about it."
She said, "Well, we just don't have the time."
I said, "Now would be a good time."

She wasn't phased. I couldn't rain on her parade.

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Then we had a short lunch. I ate at my desk, trying to get some work done, but mostly escaping the cafeteria. Steven King should write a book that takes place with a room full of teachers. It's creepy!

After lunch we had "break-out sessions." In these we got to learn about things like Special education 101, Discovery TV in the classroom ( would be cool if we had the technology to use it) and then, classroom management by an administrator. Classroom management is NOT like riding a bike, you lose it, immediately...even over a weekend. :D

In the first, Special Education 101, the instructor had her belly showing the entire time. It was worse than the material she was telling us.

The second session was held in a computer lab by the most passive aggressive woman I've ever met. I don't know who she was, but when a woman had trouble with her computer, the passive aggressive woman said, "Well, why don't you just sit there then," in the sweetest voice possible.

After a while of listening to her commercial voice (can't tune it out), she said, "Now I'll give you some time for self exploration."

yeah, I'm like 11 or something. I pushed my friend and he almost fell out of his chair.

Either way is different

I have 13 freshman that are in remedial math for two hours a day. I do as much relationship building with those kids as I do actual teaching of math. To reward them when they work hard, we sometimes talk about various things.

One day I decided to teach them a few come-backs to common insults. One come-back was to any insult towards one's mother. The come back is, "At least I have a mom and not two dads like you."

The other come-back I taught them was when someone said, in Spanish, "Your face." The come-back was, "At least I have a face and not two butts."

Today, the most hyper, most immature kid I have ever had, was in a bit of a cut-down war that broke out during the progress of a game we were playing. Someone said to him, in Spanish, "Your face."

He said, "At least I have a face and not two dads like you."

I think he missed the point.

Thumb Tack and Cookies

There's a freshman boy who is single-handedly rewriting the definition of edible. He eats EVERYTHING...or did eat everything. Girls would find various items on the floor and hand them to Mike (not his real name) and Mike would eat them.

Pencils were a particular favorite of Mike's. By the end of class, he'd have a lead left, all of the wood was consumed. Pens, paper, gum wrappers, you name it. It was past ridiculous and annoying and I half hoped he'd get sick on something.

One quiet day, while all were working, I yelled, "Mike, where'd you get that?! Spit it out, do NOT swallow that thumb tack! Mike, oh my...what the ..."

And of course Mike denied it...he hadn't eaten a thumb tack, never had one. I made it up. However, his sheepish look that says, "I think I just got away with something," didn't convince a soul.

Then I said, "You know, that could very well puncture your intestine, causing blood poisoning. This could turn our very bad for you Mike."

All of his friends were very mad at him. He continued to deny, just like he denies everything he is accused of, though he's almost always guilty. So, of course, nobody believed him.

Funny thing is...since then, he's not eaten anything, at least not in my class. Doesn't even chew on a pencil anymore.

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A girl I've had in class for 3 straight years bought some cookies from the culinary arts' fund raiser. She had the cookie on her desk and I swiped it when I walked past her desk. I figured she'd notice immediately, but nope.

About 10 minutes later she says, in spanish, "Where's my cookie?"

That was my cue. I walked to the front of the room, took the cookie out of my jacket pocket, and ate it in front of the entire class.

Luckily, it was a stolen cookie because I never expected that culinary arts would be abstract. The girl, she, for once, had nothing to say...just sat there like a trout, jaw open.

FOIL Sucks...

FOIL is a conceptually free algorithm, at least as it is retained by students. It's effectiveness is limited to multiplying binomials with integer coefficients. Anything more complex is a new "concept." Further, the reverse, factoring, especially by grouping, is extremely difficult to understand without first understanding the distributive property (where the FOIL method originates).

Example:
(a + 2)(b - 3) = ab - 3a + 2b - 6 by the FOIL method.

(a + 2)(b - 3) = a(b - 3) + 2(b - 3)= ab - 3a + 2b - 6

By the distributive property (which states that everything in the first parenthesis multiplied by all in the other).

So, in this example, FOIL is faster, if you write everything out.

Example:
(a + 2)(b + c -3) = ...with FOIL, nada, zip.

(a + 2)(b + c - 3)

With distributive property ...nothing new, everything in the first parenthesis multiplied by the second.

(a + 2)(b + c - 3) = a(b + c - 3) + 2(b + c - 3) = ab + ac - 3a + 2b + 2c - 6

Example: Factor x^3 - 2x^2 -9x + 18

Looking at this as the opposite of distributing is easy:

Factoring

x^3 - 2x^2 -9x + 18
(x^3 - 2x^2) (-9x + 18)
x^2(x - 2) - 9(x - 2)
(x^2 - 9)(x- 2)

Last example:

(sqrt(x - 1) + 1)(sqrt(x -1) + 1)
FOIL...even college algebra students are stuck. Distributive property, easy.

Thanks for helping...

Today a student bragged, "Mr, I helped save 3 lives." (She donated blood.)

I said, "Thanks for contributing to over-population. Now, we're all going to die."

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I have a few re-takers in the college algebra class I teach for the community college. Today they were giving me a hard time for "failing them." Mostly, it was just one person.

During the instruction I informed the class, "You'll be doing this all year."

The re-taker said, "You mean all semester."

I said, "For some of us, a year."

Twilight and Avatar

My lessons are presented in powerpoint. I like to jokingly brag about the animations I use. So, today, I claimed that the animation I had used was better than the special effects in the movie Avatar.

I then asked if anybody heard about the new movie coming out this summer that was part Twilight and part Avatar called Twivatar. It would be about blue vampires on a foreign planet.

A student said, with utmost seriousness, "Mr, those are two different movies."

Later she claimed to be the smartest kid in the class...and she brought up the subject.

I Don't Plan These Corruptions of the Truth

The state determined that, after 12 years of the high school's bell schedule, class time was insufficient and needed to be 4 minutes longer per class. To accomplish this, the start time was moved back 5 minutes, and one class that doesn't count (for credit), was limited to 30 minutes instead of an hour.

Many of the students did not know that the school was going to start five minutes earlier after the Christmas break. So, accordingly, they showed up late on the first day back.

When they arrived, I informed the class of the new schedule, and of how the early-release and late-start day schedules were going to change (be longer).

They asked why, and I said, "The state gives you credit based on how many hours in a year you sit in that chair and learn. The school didn't have class periods long enough. So, they changed the schedule. Now, to make up for last semester, they had to cancel spring break."

Of course, spring break was not canceled, but everything else I had said was so incredible and yet undeniably true, they never doubted me.




Fast forward one day...

Students asked, "Does today's lesson have anything to do with today's homework?"

I was impressed they noticed. Regardless, yesterday was the first day back, and thus, I gave them an EASY assignment, one they all knew how to do. However, the lesson was a little difficult and pertained more to today's assignment than yesterday's.

To explain this I said, "The same reason episodes of Blues Clues are shown back-to-back. You learn it the second time."

I heard a bunch of, "Oh, yeah, huhs," which told me that they realized that Blues Clues was shown back to back, but didn't necessarily understand the role repetition has in learning.

I said, "But I liked Blues Clues better with Steve."
I heard a bunch of, "Oh yeah, me too, way better," and so on.

Someone asked, "Why did Steve leave?"

I said, "He was touching the children, got fired."

They didn't like Steve much after that until I told them I was kidding. Then, they didn't believe I was kidding. I had to convince them I was completely ignorant of why Steve left the show.

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During precalculus today I was explaining a solution to a problem. The complexity involved to arrive at the final step was fairly intense for them. But the final step was 2 + 3. Getting the 2 and the 3 was the hard part.

I said, "And 2 + 3 is 5, but in about 2 minutes someone will ask, Mr, where did you get 5?"

And sure enough, a few moments later, someone who had been paying attention (by appearances only), said, "Mr, I have a serious question. Where did you get 5?"

I said, 2 + 3 is 5.
She said, "Oh."
I asked, Did you know where the 2 and 3 came from?
She said, Yeah, and explained appropriately.

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That's Why

In my teaching style I intentionally, and often accidentally, throw a lot of mistakes in my math. Sometimes the mistakes are computational, sometimes conceptual (usually my accidental mistakes are computational). I find that looking for mistakes really engages students in the material, gets them thinking instead of just copying.

A result of this is frequent debate over appropriate solutions to math problems. That's an awesome thing. What I've noticed is a trend among teenagers to say, when they've been proven wrong and realize it, "Yeah, that's why."

Example:

Student: Mr, what are you doing tomorrow?
Me: Working.
Student: You're going to work on Saturday?
Me: Today is Thursday.
Student: Yeah, that's why.

It's you, dumbass.

Today was the first day back to school after Christmas break. I decided that in the freshman class we'd play a little game to kill the last 10 minutes of class (they're in my class for 2 hours).

The game was where all students tell something they did on vacation and then later I state an activity and ask a student who did that activity.

A girl, Anissa, went to California. We live in Arizona.

A boy, John, went to Iowa. They sit next to each other in class.

I said, "This student left the state and went west."

I called on the boy John, asked him if he knew who it was. He was stumped, giving his typical dopey look. Everybody laughed at him, called him dumb, stupid, whatever. He shrugged it off, saying he didn't remember. Then Anissa said, while punching him, "It's you dumbass."

Students informed her that she, Anissa, went west, not John, who went to Iowa. She buried her face in her hands, laughing. Then, became indignant, and said, "But I went to EAST LA."