Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Emancipation of Education

So with all the positive energy our dear Governor is supplying the teachers these days, I thought it was time for a wake me up. The Potbellied Govercutter wants to chop a hell of a lot out of school budgets. Times are tough, but teachers have it hard as is.

Besides having the poo storm of cuts coming down from high up on Mt. Olympi-Trenton, teachers still have to tend to the "little pretties" day in and out. That's all of them. Smart ones, semi-smart ones, street smart, book smart, gym smart, lunch majors, lunch minors, the zombies and the malcontents. For those Ferris fans, that includes "the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads" - teachers have them all.

So, point in case: math teachers put up with some crazy poop. I completely understand why my high school math teacher had more than just coffee in his mug every morning and why he was 3 sheets to the wind by 4th period. If he wasn't he'd have run head first into a wall years before I got there.

After 7 and a half months of teaching Algebra to freshmen, here is a sample of what we deal with everyday. And I put extra emphasis on every

Real Question on a math quiz:

Joe has 7 fish. Every month the fish double in amount. How many
fish will Joe have after 3 months? --Take a second or two. A little math in your head and carry the one, and you get: 56

Actual answers given by students:

a. 36,407
b. 3,524
c. 49x^6
d. 207,351

This is absolutely, 100% true. I saw the quizzes.

Heed the Dub

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