Quote of the Day (pay)

"Mister, do teachers get paid more if they teach higher levels?" - Innocent question from a high school student. If that's the case, Algebra 2 must be the lowest math course ever. (11/26/14)

Quote of the Day (infinite)

"Why not!? There are only an infinite number of teachers that can teach Algebra 2." - Question and backhanded compliment from a former student who wanted me to lobby to take the place of his Trigonometry teacher, who is retiring in a few weeks. (11/24/14)

Quote of the Day (tutor)

"I'm the master at this! Who needs help?" - Comment/offer from a high school student who felt empowered by his mastery of some graphing calculator skills. (11/24/14)

Quote of the Day (zipper)

"Mister, I don't know if math can help, but my zipper's broken." - Facetious comment from a high school student after class ended. When he saw the confused look on my face, he hastened to add, "On my backpack. On my backpack." (11/20/14)

Quote of the Day (jet packs)

"Mister, they need to leave some jet packs for us at the bottom of the stairs." - Comment from a high school student after he just finished hiking up to my class on the third floor. (11/19/14)

Quote of the Day (calculators)

"CALCULATORS ARE FUN!" - Exclamation from a high school student after I showed the class how to make a complicated process simple by using the classroom set of graphing calculators. (11/18/14)

Quote of the Day (free time)

Student 1: "Mister, did you watch the [football] game?"
Me: "No, I don't have cable."
Student 1: "You don't have cable? What do you do when you have free time?"
Me (sarcastically): "I just sit around and do math problems all night."
Student 1 and his peers laugh.
An eavesdropping student asked me after Student 1 and his peers had left the class, "Mister, do you really do math problems at night for fun?" (11/17/14)

Quote of the Day (sniff)

"Oh, now I can smell his hair!" - Statement from a high school student followed by a lean forward and a deep inhalation after his friend switched seats to sit right in front of him so he could see the board better. (11/14/14)

Quote of the Day (instructions)

"Hey! That's what I did!" - Gleefully proud exclamation from a coworker during a workshop after the presenter asked us to fold a sheet of paper a certain way to get a 3x4 grid. My coworker's grid dimensions were 4x4. (11/13/14)

Quote of the Day (heart)

"I just told him to follow his heart." - Response from a high school student after I confronted him about what he had said to his peer who was trying to get his help during a test. (11/12/14)

Quote of the Day (fortune cookie)

"It's like a Chinese wishbone." - Description of a fortune cookie from a high school student. (11/10/14)

Quote of the Day (prgramming)

"That's so cool! I want to get into computers now." - Gleeful exclamation from a high school student after she finished writing/testing her first program to solve quadratic equations on a graphing calculator. (11/7/14)

Quote of the Day (sales)

"Hey Mister, do you remember that time I came to your house to sell something [for a fund raiser]?" - Creepy question from a student regarding an incident from several years ago. (11/6/14)

Quote of the Day (McDonalds)

"You just go in there and you get fat." - Comment from a high school student to her friend about McDonald's. (11/5/2014)

Quote of the Day (notes)

"That's because I knew how to do it right after you showed us [the problems] in class." - A high school student's reason for just writing down the answers after I asked him why he didn't write any notes on how to do the problems for the unit I taught last week. (11/3/14)

Quote of the Day (costume)

"Mister, did you dress up as a math teacher?" - Question from a high school student who noticed that I didn't wear a costume for class on Halloween. (10/31/14)

Quote of the Day (trace)

"Mister, if I pay you two dollars, would you trace something for me?" - Question from a high school student trying to finish his project before class. When a few of his peers and I rejected his proposition, he exclaimed, "Why are there no people who believe in kindness?" (10/30/14)

Quote of the Day (rap)

"Mister, you have to read this to all your students in your next class." - Demand from a high school student who wrote the following rap verse on my whiteboard. (10/29/14)

"♫ Don't do drugs in the bushes with the bugs, or you'll be ugz and most likely to get mugged...rolled up in a rug, by a real-deal thug who's feeling fresh and smug...cause you don't need weed and you don't need to feed on mary-j plants that you stash in your pants, feeling so fanc...y, antsy and kind of dancy, getting footloose at Sadies with a moose. Flapping like a goose cause you did drugs uce...you should put it down and represent your town, not with a frown, looking like a clown, cause clowns do ice, they think it will suffice, but it doesn't do the job, you stand there looking like a fob, all square like sponge bob...Living in his pineapple under the sea...feeling high like the peeps in the yellow submarine...puff the magic dragon can't help you now, your doing drugs in the bushes looking like a cow...like how do you do that? Drugs and stuff...I think we all have had enough...so stop doing drugs, throw it down and swerve! Something something something you just got served. ☺︎ This rap was made by a sober person. ♫"

Quote of the Day (birthday)

"And sometimes if you're lucky, you get two." - Comment from a student who was eavesdropping on a conversation I was having with her peer about birthdays. (10/2/14)

Quote of the Day (out of character)

"Mister, today I'm going to do something that no one would expect me to do." - Announcement from a high school student said with a mischievous smile before his classmates entered the classroom. (10/27/14)