Quote of the Day

"NO FAIR! You have longer legs than I do." -- A student's cry after he tried to race past me up 3 flights of stairs on the way to class. I beat him by calmly skipping every other step. (9/3/10)

Question of the Day (me)

"Mister! Is this you?!" -- A student, who had finished his computerized assessment early and took it upon himself to google my name. This is the image he was referring to:

Does he have a point?

(4/19/11)

Quote of the Day (shy)

"Mister, are you shy?" -- A random question from a student in the middle of class. (1/25/11)

Quote of the Day (eggplant)

"My coach calls me 'Eggplant'." - Complaint from a high school student who apparently confused some eggplants on the kitchen table with rotten bananas. (1/18/13)

Quote of the Day (black)

"Mister, why do they call black people black?" - Question from a high school student after class was over. (1/23/14)

Quote of the Day (nameless)

"Mister, how could you NOT know that was my paper?" - Somewhat serious question from a high school student who just found his homework in my "no-name graveyard" (where unclaimed assignments go to die). (1/16/14)

Quote of the Day (faith)

"Mister, do you have faith in me [to pass the test]?" - Question from a high school student as we started the second day of reviewing a difficult unit. When I gave a positive response in telling her that she was going to ace the exam, she retorted, "Let's not go overboard, OK?" (2/25/14)

Quote of the Day (advocate)

"Mister! You need to talk to the school!" - Desperate and serious sounding plea from a high school student after recess. When I asked her what was wrong, she began to catch her breath and said, "Those stairs..." (4/11/14)

Quote of the Day (landscape)

"Mister, why don't you just say to turn it sideways?" - Question from a high school student mocking me for telling students to turn their papers to landscape orientation. (5/2/14)

Quote of the Day (bedding)

"Mister, what are 'mattresses'?" - Question from a student as I was about to introduce the day's concept of matrices. (4/15/14)

Quote of the Day (vocabulary)

"Because, my teacher taught us a new word and told us to apply it in our lives." - Comment from a student after I asked him why he and his friend were calling each other "imbeciles". (5/23/14)

Quote of the Day (awkward)

"Why do you always catch me in these awkward situations?" - Question from a high school student after I stopped talking during my lesson to watch her carefully pour her water from her bottle into the cap just to drink from it. Yesterday, I caught her gently stroking her friend's hair as the friend was trying to focus on her assignment. (4/15/14)

Quote of the Day (rounding)

"You're gonna round up right?" - Question from a high school student upon seeing that her overall grade for the year was 89.6% but had completely refused to do any extra work the week before. (5/21/14)

Quote of the Day (buffalo)

Student 1: "Mister, isn't Buffalo in New York?"
Student 2: "No! No, it's not. They're everywhere in places like Montana and South Dakota." (5/27/14)

Quote of the Day (sandwich)

"What a sad little sandwich!" - Comment about my lunch from a high school student who came to my classroom for help. (5/27/14)

Quote of the Day (free time)

"Mister, do you like to take tests during your free time?" - Question from a high school student who found a whole stack of old exams in my scratch paper pile. (5/29/14)

Quote of the Day (shirt)

"This is the shirt I was wearing when [name of her best friend in class] first talked to me." - Comment from a high school student on the last day of school after I complimented her on something clever that was printed on her shirt. She had chosen to wear the same shirt she wore on the first day of school to commemorate the friendship with her classmate that developed during this year. (5/29/14)

Quote of the Day (procrastination)

"Mister, can you help me?" - Plea for assistance from a former student trying to finish his homework on the last day of school. After explaining the process to him, he sighed and said, "Never mind, can you just do it for me?" (5/29/14)

Quote of the Day (miss)

"You know, Mister, I think I'm gonna miss this class the most from this year." - Compliment from a high school student on the last day of the school year. A few minutes later well after the conversation had ended, he approached me and added, "But I won't miss climbing those stairs." (5/29/14)

Quote of the Day (prayers)

"Bye Mister. See you next year...in your Trig class. I'll be praying over the summer that you'll be my Trig teacher next year." - Parting greeting from a high school student at the end of the school year. (5/29/14)