Obstacle Course

For students, the passing time between classes is a time to get in some quality time with friends, catching up on old times because it has been 3 periods since they've seen each other. Or it's squeezing in a quick make-out session with a boyfriend or girlfriend because Lord knows this is the only place (the crowded second floor hallway) where the two of them can get any privacy and be alone. Or, if it's the Napoleon Dynamite of the school, it's a mad dash to the cafeteria to be the first to get some tots, scarf them down, and then continue to stare at the wall while his hand unconsciously doodles drawings of Castle Grayskull (update to Pokimon).

It is different for teachers.

When that bell rings and a teacher is actually afforded another class in the same classroom, all is right with the world.

When that bell rings and said teacher needs to vacate the classroom in order to go to another classroom, or even worse, go to the cafeteria for duty (high school students still laugh at this word, duty) it's like the American Gladiator Gauntlet Challenge. And there is a time limit.

Students do not move out of the way for teachers anymore. It is unheard of to get out of a teacher's way. Crowds of students congregate in hordes as if their sole purpose in their adolescent lives is to serve as an obstacle in the gauntlet. Students have the innate ability to sense a teacher on their tail and make a point to hit the brakes abruptly to suck some face in the middle of the hallway. And, if a teacher points out to a few star crossed students that the middle of the senior staircase isn't really the appropriate place to become intimate, how dare that teacher invade their privacy and get all up in their bid-niss.

The backpack gangs are always looking to pull off teacher hit and runs. These are the good students moving faster than they ever do in phys ed, whose backpacks are twice their sizes, and who, I swear, load them with bricks. They are professional hallway Froggers, flying by teachers at breakneck paces, dodging, weaving, and ducking in the smallest gaps possible, but somehow manage to whack at least two educators with each pass. They blindside adults without missing a step. It is an amazing feat to witness.

That's it. Just some observational awareness.

Heed the Dub

Let's Get Schooled

Obviously, teachers can use all the help we can get.

Thanks to everyone who voted to pass the school budgets out there. Education is an uphill battle everyday. Just remember how you, your friends, and/or all the other kids treated your teachers. Square that by ten. You have no idea how many cell phones and Ipods I would love to throw out my second story window. So I thank everyone who voted the opposite of what Fat Fatty wanted. You saved more jobs than you know.

Heed the Dub

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