My (Two) Favorite Quote(s) of Late

"In Teaching you have a million bosses that can yell at you and no one that can fire you"
- Fellow Teacher

It most certainly is the truth. I can be reprimanded by my mentor, department head, either assistant principal, principal, any of 3 assistant superintendent, or the head superintendent. Can any of them really do anything to me? Not really. I guess they could fire me until I get tenure but they probably won't unless I do something really really horrible. Makes for an interesting profession that way. If no one can really do anything to me why should I listen to them?

Unfortunately I can't remember the other one at the moment....darn, it was good I promise.

Thankfully I remembered.
"Teaching is the only field in which everyone thinks they are an expert, and since they all went through 12 years of it, they kind of are"
-Another fellow teacher

This quote is so true and can make our jobs so difficult too. Everyone has a real experience and at least remembers what worked for them and what didn't. It helps because parents can help their children if they remember it but hurts us too because parents also have their own fears from school and without realizing it put them on their children. If I had a dollar for everytime I've talked to a parent about their child struggling in math and their only response was "I was never very good at math either" Like that is an answer. I didn't do well in math so my child doesn't have to either. Very helpful for a teacher trying to motivate the students to learn math if their parents gives them a free out.

Can't Be First

This will always amuse me. No one ever wants to be the first one to turn in a test. I have at least 5 kids sitting there with completed tests that don't want to be first. As soon as one brave kid (and its the same one in every class) finally decides they are done all of a sudden many students will finish too. Little things like this always seem to amuse me. I wonder if that will continue beyond my first year.

Robots vs. Thinkers

"That's not fair! We didn't have a problem like that on the homework!"

Yep, and that is the point. I'm trying to teach my students that being able to redo a homework problem with different numbers in it is not a reasonable test. I don't want them to simply memorize step one, step two, and step three. I want them to think about what is going on in the problem and what needs to be done to get from what they are given to what they want to find. Apparently making them think about what to do is unfair. How do I tell the parents that are mad that the school has been failing their kids by making them think that math is just learning the formulas and then doing the same problems with different numbers on the test? That isn't learning, that is training a monkey to count. I like to think my students are smarter than monkeys.

**On an unrelated note I'm looking for a good way for a male teacher to inform a female student that it isn't that his room is too cold it is that she is wearing far too little clothing**

Many Hats

I knew when I was getting into teaching that I would play more roles than just classroom teacher. Career advice, college advice, counselor, parent, etc. I never knew I also needed to be all knowing information source.

Apparently I should know among other things:

The weather
Every sports schedule (high school and pro)
Every student that was called to the office
Curriculum guide for all subjects not just the one I teach
TV listings
General Pop Culture Informer

Thankfully this does seem to justify my excessive TV watching.

The Wave of Panic

Quizzes and tests just seem to inspire posts. Maybe because I can type without looking at my keyboard so I can do this and still watch for cheaters

I call this testing phenomenon the "wave of panic" someone will ask a "stupid" question about a problem "just to be sure." Today it was this: "A regular hexagon has a side length of 6 cm." This inspires the question of "is six the side length or half the side length?" To which I respond it is the SIDE LENGTH. Other students overhear this question and start to panic and I get asked the same question or even sillier ones because of it. "Do you mean 6 is the perimeter?" "So 6 is the radius right?"

My other favorite from today. In one of my problems I made a mistake. The directions say find the area of the regular pentagon pictured. Then I have a drawing of a hexagon with parts labeled. So I tell the class to cross out the word pentagon and replace it with the word hexagon. No one listens and I get the questions asked 3 or 4 more times. I tell one student and she response with "oh I don't read the directions so I wouldn't have even noticed." Makes me wish that I could tape record that and play it back for her when she gets her grade. . .

Fundraisers . .

how I hate thee. Maybe I don't have a reasonable understanding of this having only worked in a classroom and never in an office setting but why in the world must we ALWAYS have AT LEAST 4 fundraisers going on at a time. Yes I want to save the whales, and the ozone, and feed the hungry, and support the homeless shelter, and the SPCA, and the hurricane victims, and so on. But is the answer really hitting up teachers and students everytime someone hears of a cause that needs help? I can't buy any more flowers, candy, pizza, discount cards etc. I am so sick of being asked to support every cause my students are doing. Isn't there a better way?