Breadcrumbs?

At the end of nearly every class I can be assured of at least two things. 

First, someone is going to leave something behind.

Sometimes, I find water bottles, snacks or entire backpacks. Often, I find pens, pencils or pencil boxes. Usually, it’s paper of some sort - hand-outs, do-now’s, exit tickets, notes, permission slips or homework. 

Whenever I find a homework assignment, I know someone is going to tell me the next day “I didn’t get one,” which I know, is probably not true because I’ve found it under his or her desk. 

I have always assumed the leaving of stuff behind was due to some overall lack of organizational skills but, it occurs to me, there may be other potential explanations.

Perhaps, my forgetful students are just so over-burdened with paper and supplies that they simply can not bear the weight of one more sheet of paper. The paper that broke the camels back as it were.

Maybe, they are simply being very efficient. If they are due back in my room for, say health class, later in the day, maybe they’ll just leave the paper for later and not lug it around all day.

Of course it could be for navigation. Maybe they are simply leaving a trail of papers so they can find their way back to my room - much like a trail of breadcrumbs.

I’m not sure what the reason for all the things left behind, but I do know two things: There’s gonna be something on the floor when my students leave...and, the second thing, I’m probably gonna pick it up.

What A Great Idea

A student asked me a question the other day and it really got me thinking.

“Do you get paid more for giving homework?” she asked.

“Huh,” was my surprised response, thinking I had not heard the question correctly.

“Do you get paid more for giving out homework?” she repeated, and this time a couple other students chimed in “Yes, we heard you get paid for giving us homework”

“Why would you even think that?” I answered, a wry smile on my face, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking about it.

Hmmmmmmmm, paid for assigning homework - maybe $5 per assignment per student? 

This might add up, I was thinking. I teach four classes and have about 60 students in those classes. That’s $300 a night. If I assigned homework seven days a week, that’d be an extra $2,100 a week. If I could give them two assignments per night, I could double my money. This could really add up. 

Wow, what a great idea. Brilliant. Ferrari, here I come. 

Now, all I have to do is get the Board of Directors to agree and... 

“Do you?” begged a chorus of middle schoolers, interrupting my thoughts.

“Uh, no, not at all,” I said. “Trust me, if I got paid for giving out homework, you’d be doing 12 hours of it a night.”

But, what a great idea...

There's No Exact Answer

As a math teacher, I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about numbers. As math students, I would suggest you also spend a lot of time thinking and talking about numbers. 

There’s one group of numbers that I find very interesting. They are kind of the odd balls of the number system - irrational numbers.

First - what is an irrational number? 

Let’s think about the word “irrational” for a moment. According to Thesauraus.com, synonyms for irrational include unreasonable, illogical, unjustifiable and more.

To put it simply, irrationals are the crazy numbers. 

An irrational number looks like any other fraction - for example: 22/7 - but there’s a catch. You can write 22/7 as a decimal and it looks like 3.14285714 and the decimal places go on forever, never repeats and never ends.  (You might recognize that number as Pi - an important number in math circles.)

And here’s the part of that crazy that boggles my mind: You can never get an exact answer.

Think about it - If I ask you to calculate the ratio of a circle’s circumference and diameter you’re going to tell me it’s 3.14 or Pi. But that’s not really true. It’s more of an approximation. Because the number changes depending on how many decimal places we look at. 

3.14 is not the same as 3.1415. They are different numbers and, yet, we accept both as being equal to Pi. We have to accept that the value we place on any irrational number is not exact, and it can’t ever be exact, because the decimals go on forever.

It’s irrational to think like that but we do.

You Know We Root For You, Right?

I'm going to pull back the curtain on the mysterious world of a teacher just a little bit today. 

We have lots and lots of work to correct - homework, do now's, exit tickets, class work, projects, lab reports, quizzes and, of course, tests.  We’re constantly reviewing and commenting on your work. 

Do you know we teachers root for you, our students, right?

It's true. 

We root for you every day. 

We’re excited when you show us how much you’ve learned.

I cannot tell you how often I have been grading a student's test and he/she will have correct answer after correct answer, then a mistake, and I feel disappointment for the student. I'm really hoping every answer is correct.

I hope every student gets a perfect score on every test I give. It doesn't happen often, but I'm always pulling for my students to do well.

I know sometimes it may not seem like it, but, trust me, we're on your side. 

We're rooting for you all the way.