New Math

Here are some math equations that tend to sum up a lot of different things in life.








Images courtesy of allnewmath.com

Another Underpaid Teacher

I just got paid back half of the four dollars I loaned to a teacher for lunch on the 15th...January 15th.

Happy President Obama Day?

When I reminded my students that there would be no school on Monday, one of my smarter students yelled out, "President's Day right?" One of my other kind of students chimed in, "Oh! Because of Obama?"

Funny right? Yeah, it was funny the first time, but after three different students in completely different classes said about the same thing I got a little worried. Social studies teachers where are you?

Lost Your Noodle?

As a frequent shopper at amazon.com, I have come to keep an eye on their lightning deals page whenever I'm bored. The timed deals' supplies go fast if it's a popular item at a heavily discounted price. I ran across this particular item that sold out really quickly (according to posted comments). One reviewer wrote:

So what is this person's greatest purchase that sold for over 50% off?



Looks like you can get it gift wrapped too.

0.15 Seconds of Fame

Thanks to the sharp eyes of my grandma, I found out that my uncle and aunt were in a commercial before we found out from our source of family news. They're in an ad for Hawaiian Airlines and if you blink you'll miss them (literally).

My aunt shows up a couple times starting at the 8 second mark and again after my uncle passes the camera in front of her at around the 18 second mark. I wonder how much they're compensated for their few seconds of airtime.

2 or more teachers in the same room

When I was in high school, I used to walk by the faculty lounge everyday on the way to English class. I used to always wonder what happened behind closed doors. Every once in a while, a teacher would exit/enter when I walked by, and I would catch a glimpse of teachers lounging on comfy looking couches and chairs, clean tables, coffee makers, and tacky art hanging on the wall.

So what really happens when two or more teachers are in the same room together for an extended period of time? Complaining. Lots and lots of complaining. Surely I would never claim to be exempt from this behavior since complaining is in my top three hobbies (right up there with eating and sleeping).

Last Wednesday, I had to hurry and eat before running to the first of two meetings that overlapped into my lunch hour and forced me out of my last two classes of the day. During my shoveling session, I was joined at my table by two teachers. At first the conversation started out about all the hubbub regarding the two graduates of our school playing in the Super Bowl. Soon the topic switched to where we live. One of the teachers mentioned that he had recently moved with his wife; the other teacher asked what the wife did. Nursing. Then BOOM! "They [the nurses] have so much better negotiators than our union. Last year they successfully negotiated new contracts, but ours are still haggling over the drug testing." On and on they droned about poor working conditions -- short lunch breaks, heavy class loads, not enough money, blah blah blah.

I rushed off to my first meeting. We started discussing how to incorporate education standards and test data into our official documents (IEPs for those of you keeping score). We were doing pretty well at staying on topic (in other words: putting me to sleep) when a teacher asked, "So when are we supposed to find the time to compile all of this data and plan for our classes? I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, but I seem to be spending so much time making calls to parents to coordinate meetings, typing these documents and creating goals that I don't have time to prepare standards based lessons for my students." The sentiment spread around the room and soon teachers were pouncing on the presenter with all kinds of complaints about short prep periods, heavy work loads, not enough support, blah blah blah.

Now I know why they kept the faculty lounge door closed at my high school; it's not because the teachers didn't want their complaints to be heard, but because everyone else was sick of hearing them.