*sniff*

I have remarkable students.

At the end of 3rd period study hall on Thursday, I got a phone call that necessitated my leaving the building, so I had to throw together sub plans on very short notice. At the beginning of 4th period, I apologized to the kids, explained that they’d have to look in their books for examples of the Law of Cosines and try to do the assignment. I told them I fully believed they could figure it out. I asked them to help each other.

I was trying not to show the students that I was upset/worried/nervous. Apparently I didn’t do a very good job of that. I apologized again on my way out. This is what I heard as I was leaving, “Don’t worry Mrs. B, we’ll figure it out. We love you.”

It’s a good thing I was walking out the door. Darn kids - making me all teary.

I haven’t forgotten

I haven’t forgotten about this space where I’m allegedly reflecting about my first year teaching.

I’m just buried in work. Grading, mid-quarter grades, reports to case managers, parent contact, first year portfolio, preparing for final exams… you know, the usual. I don’t do well with little sleep.

There are many changes happening too. I don’t do well with change. I still don’t know for sure what I’m teaching next year. I don’t do well with uncertainty either.

I’m also getting a bit wistful at the thought of not seeing some of the seniors anymore. I’ve grown attached to quite a few of them. This happens to me every year.

I need to figure out how to better deal with these things. I don’t think they are going to change much from year to year.

Ready or not, here we come!

This weekend is the ICTM High School Math Contest State Finals. Friday afternoon I’ll be one of two coaches driving a bus¹ of math team students down to U of I. Six students qualified to compete individually. Our 5 person calculator, freshman-sophomore 8 person, and junior-senior 8 person teams qualified too!

It should be a good weekend (although I admit, I detest driving the bus - I’ll be much more relaxed once we get there). Friday evening is always fun - we’ll eat dinner and then just hang out at the hotel. Last year we had “math team family game night”. This year promises to be just as enjoyable. It is one of the senior’s birthdays. A cake has been ordered that says “Happy th Birthday”.

We’re hoping for good weather so we can hang out on the quad Saturday between events. Although we can always check out the math library in Altgeld too.

A couple of years ago², I told two of the students that it had been one of my favorite places to study when I was there. Their eyes lit up. A whole library, just for math?… and off they went to investigate. I love coaching math team. Kids excited about a math library. Gotta love it. Now one of those “kids” is a college freshman - majoring in math. The other is a college sophomore - he wants to be a math teacher.

Have I mentioned I love coaching math team?

Wish us luck!

¹It’s sort of a bus. A mini bus. The kids lovingly refer to them as the ice-cream-trucks.
² Even though this is my first year teaching, it’s my fourth year coaching the math team.

Photo: IMG_5648 by mrkw via flickr, cc

Proof Update

Things have gone much better the past two days with the trig proofs. Much much better.

Yesterday, I asked for volunteers to put up the solutions. Not every problem was done correctly (most were though). Having the students explain their thinking as they were presenting helped. They did a nice job asking questions of one another. I also stressed multiple methods so we saw different ways of doing things. Some were a bit convoluted, but they worked.

Today was more of the same, except this time I called on the, uhm, hesitant students. I told them they could use a lifeline if they got stuck. One girl clapped and cheered when she did it correctly on the board. One student initially said no. I told him it was his choice. So, of course he then got up and did it.

We have a quiz tomorrow. We talked about how to study for math. I’m still surprised by the number of students whose plan is to “look at” the problems. I suggested to take out a new piece of paper and do the same problems again. Then compare results. I shared that I’ve done the same problems over and over until I understood them.

We’ll see what tomorrows brings in terms of quiz results, but I’m really happy with the way classes have gone the past two days. The students have been doing the math, explaining the math, and asking questions of each other. Yay!