An important question

I've often wondered if my bombastic, loose, witty lessons combined with my adult ADD (easily distracte---boy is it a beautiful day for a run today, if only my knees would cooperate), and minor Turret's (I have a difficult time having unspoken thoughts) help or hinder my ability to teach. In fact, my proclivity to wander off subject, take time out to explore a good joke, or interject random bits of trivia in no particular language is the main reason I entitle my blog "Off On A Tangent," that and that it was a great math pun (oh, yeah, I often say things in class that are punny).

My digressions tend to get worse throughout the day as I get tired, hungry, or begin thinking about what I'll do after school. They even get worse throughout the year, as my educational endurance reaches into its reserves. This year's been even worse having to adjust from a block schedule. I'm pretty much slap happy and sometimes ridiculously delirious by 2:00pm. Compound all that with the fact that I don't eat breakfast nor do I eat lunch (13 years now), relying instead on my morning dose of caffeine via 12 cups of dark, black coffee. By mid-afternoon, I'm not only hungry, my body is crashing. None of this is necessarily any good for my last period class of the day, a class that, more than any other of my classes, requires me to be focused, explicitly clear, and cognitively cogent. That class is BC calculus.

This time of year, in BC, we're getting into some pretty high-powered math, abstruse concepts and often paradoxical results (see Torricelli's Trumpet for an example), but the concepts become even more difficult to understand when they're not presented well. Granted, the students I'm expecting to just "pick up" on the ideas and their implications are among the top math students in the world, which means they'll probably understand in spite of any dereliction of duty on the didactical dictator's part. Everything has always worked out in the end, meaning all have gone on to do well on the AP exam in May, a successful, well-adjusted university career, and beyond. As a result, I've never tried to temper my enthusiasm or ballistic approach, but lately I've noticed that, left unchecked, I've progressed further and further, becoming what might seem more like incompetent lunatic, rather than eccentric math teacher.

I'm beginning to feel the judgmental eyes of the BC class as they wonder if their mathematical future is in good hands. What they don't realize is that I'm trying to come up with wonderful, meaningful examples on my feet, to try to make the lesson "fresher," more "relevant," and "customized," but it's very hard to come up with such examples from the hip. It's even more difficult when your exhausted, hungry, and "crazy." While my intentions are good, many of my impromptu examples have been dead ends, and while I can extract a valuable lesson from each of them (.... soooo this series actually diverges, ......sooooo we should never assume lest we make one of ourselves, .....soooooo here's why you should get plenty of sleep and plan all your extemporaneous speeches in advance), it's hard to save face in the eyes of our society's future top scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, clothing designers, and stay-at-home-parents.

So I'm contemplating the question: should I teach on the straight-and-narrow and lose all the interesting, memorable follies, foibles, and fallacies that go along with learning and teaching a great group of students, or should I continue to teach like I do, running the risk of a few moments where I look like an unprepared, incompetent, mathematician gone bonkers?

Or perhaps . . .

I could just start eating lunch?

Ode to ELA TAKS

It's madness I tell you, we must be in March.
I'm monitoring so actively, my shirt's losing its starch.

Today is a big day, it's TAKS ELA
and there's so many rules that I have to obey.

No websites to browse, and nothing to read,
it's going to be a long day indeed.

I'll read like a robot in monotone voice
reminding the students to bubble their choice.

Read exactly what's written, there's no script deviation.
(These type performances get no standing ovation.)

"Backpacks to the front, turn off your cell phones.
bathroom's one at a time, you must go alone."

"No drinks except water, hurry, finish your drink.
There's no proof that energy drinks help your brain think."

"Speaking of brain food, have I some for you,
I'll now pass out something on which you may chew."

I then hand out crackers, and a peppermint candy.
"If you're hungry or've got bad breath, they'll each come in handy."

"Turn to page to in your book, No not that one,
Please don't turn at all 'til my words are done."

"Your test booklet's also known as 'the test,'
I'm not 'posed to say, but I will, 'do your best!"

"Your answer sheets the page on which you will bubble.
Please raise your hand if you are having trouble."

"You may begin," I eventually say,
As the ELA students begin to wend their own way

Through a myriad of passages that they all have to read,
it'll be a long day for them, too, quite indeed.

Now time moves so slowly that I hardly can feel it.
I'm watching the clock as if someone will steal it.

The only sounds made are pages turning to the next,
and the occasional grunt from the student whose perplexed.

Now I just sit there, twiddling my thumbs,
looking all around, smacking my gum.

I try to pass time by popping my knuckles,
A student just farted, now I'm suppressing the chuckles.

I'm crossing my legs, one over the other,
and sharpening pencils, one after another.

Humming all kinds of great songs in my head,
stopping only to put a sharp point on a lead.

I can't do much else, lest the students all cheat.
Then I lose my job and have nothing to eat.

No, I've got to keep watching them, I must stay alert.
"Is that boy out of dress code? Should he tuck in his shirt?"

Many times there's eye contact. "Great, they think that I'm leering."
"Wait just a second, that guy's wearing an earring."

Oh the grand thoughts that do go through my mind,
"Did I start them too late, is the world now behind?"

My pacing is wearing out holes in my floor,
Oh great! there's some action, a kid's started to snore.

I wake him up gently and set him on course,
(he looks more bored than I do, now I'm filled with remorse.)

But no one may sleep during a standardized test.
Those without diplomas will surely attest.

If you're not awake, then you can't show your knowledge,
much less can you go to a nice four-year college.

To their every need, I eagerly cater.
Sometimes, though, it feels like I'm just a TAKS waiter.

What's with all the pencils?! I make lots of trips,
I feel I should ask if they'd like salsa and chips.

There's so many students who are sniffling and sneezing,
(perhaps its because I keep my room freezing.)

At least I have tissues, gives me something to do,
walk around with Kleenex asking, "have you nasal goo?"

No, I really don't do that, but I think it, it's true.
They get their own tissues. What's a bored teacher to do?

On part one, for each student, verbal aid is okay,
Dictionaries, Thesauruses, can help compose essays.

But part two is different, they must spell on their own,
Even if, for them, the true's spelling's unknown.

I move Dictionaries from desk A to desk B,
as I hope my break's coming soon, 'cause I gotta pee.

(dang all that coffee, by now I should know,
that favors are returned ala "quid pro quo')

I've ne'er given potty breaks an anyone lately,
I regret that now that I've got to pee greatly.

Great, just on time, my relief is here,
"I'll be back in a flash! You just saved my career!!!"

Returning refreshed, I can now go all day,
We're all that much closer for ELA going 'way.

But wait, who's on part two and who's still on one?
Part one uses dictionaries, part two uses none!

But while I was out, only one student switched,
(Thank goodness she told me 'bout which one was which.)

The next phase is blurry, I'm not sure how it passed,
I don't mean to say it went by real fast.

As the clock on the wall slowly ticked toward one-o- clock,
We all leaned towards the door like a giant trapped flock.

Then the announcement came, "Students please go to fourth."
and with the announcement, all the students went forth.

To go to real classes, they couldn't wait to return,
Who knew they'd all be so eager to learn.

But learning was hard with such 'breviated classes,
Teachers barely had time to count lads and lasses.

I spent my few minutes with each of my own,
finding the volume of right circular cones.

Then the day finally ended, we were done with the drill.
At least we get to do it all again, come April.

I ain't 'fraid of no Spring

Today's not only the first day of March (already!) but also the first day of the work week (already!!) and the first day of the 5th six weeks grading period on campus (already!!!). So while it's a day of new beginnings, including this beginning paragraph of my now "plan your mortgage payment around my consistently reliable" monthly blogs, it's also a red-letter day for things coming to an end.

Sadly, the weekend is over once again. It seems like there's always more hours between Monday and Friday than there ever are between Saturday and Sunday (and I guess that's for a reason). I never get the time to do all the things I always mean to on the weekends. With all the practice we have getting used to Monday morning arriving all too quickly, you'd think we'd be great at facing Mondays, but it never gets any easier. At least we had some great weather yesterday and Saturday, and it was so nice to be watching it through a window while labored over a computer writing three more letters of recommendations. I did get some great time with my own two children (and even my wife!), after which I told them that I was "sincerely grateful for the time we spent together, and that I enthusiastically and wholeheartedly recommended them for a scholarship." Indeed, the weekends should be called the "strong" ends.

Good thing I love my job, so Mondays aren't really something I dread. In fact, I was rather excited about going to school today, because today marked the first day of the end of something else: my tenure as interim Statistics teacher. No offense to all the wonderful stat students I got to teach the past two months, and no offense to statistics itself, which is, after all, still math (and boy do I love math at least as much as I love jalapenos, and I DO love jalapenos and coffee (not together, though) (see previous blog entries)). Rather, the relinquishing of statistics to its rightful, maternity-leave-returning teacher gives me much of my free time back, time that can now be spent doing other productive things like blogging, helping my daughter spell "George Washington," trimming Crepe Myrtles, feeding my two dogs (they're so awfully thin!), writing letters of recommendation before 2 a.m., and calculating confidence intervals just 'cause I wanna.

Best of all, the temporary teaching arrangement, which required my department head to teach my 2nd period precal class after observing me teach it 1st period so that she could ensure that my own 2nd period precal class, the one I would be leaving in the hands of the department head so that I could go across the hall to teach statistics to a different class, which I learned to also call "my own," would get the exact same lesson so that when I quizzed them the next day, when I was back, while the stat class worked on a worksheet that covered the lesson from the previous day, would be able to do well on the quiz I was to give them that covered precal material I did not teach them but that they were still, nonetheless, taught. Yeah, all that is over. The department head gets her planning period back, I get my 2nd period precal class back full-time, the returning stat teacher gets her stat class back (albeit much, much smaller since her absence spanned the semester break at which time many stat students dropped), and the stat-teacher's full-time substitute, who was teaching the stat teacher's geometry classes every day but not the stat class but who rather graded geometry papers and entered grades in the stat classroom while I taught the stat class while the department head taught my precal class while the original stat teacher was at home spending deserving, quality time with her newborn daughter, in the house, that incidentally, Jack built . . . I forgot where I was going with this.

Anyway, the smell of spring is in the air, even if we're smelling it outside with our winter coats on, prepared on any given night to still leave our hose-bibs dripping outside during a flash-Texas-overnight freeze. Everything is being reborn and coming out of the winter dormancy (if you're St. Augustine grass or Crepe Myrtles), hibernation (if you're a bear or a lazy math student), of the doldrums (if you're a wind north of the equator of prone to the blaaaahs). There are only 3 very busy and exciting months left in the school year, during which softball and baseball seasons must be played, getting ready for AP exams must be gotten, Swine Flu must be avoided, Prom dates must be finalized, banquets much be planned, and seniors begin to feel both the excitement of graduation and the nervousness that comes with the reality that they will be leaving their household to enter college--the first step into the unforgiving dog-eat-dog world. It's also a time for teachers to dig in their heels and pull each and every student across the finish line. Without the stat class, there are just fewer people for me to have to pull across that line.

Not that I'm not strong enough to do it, I just need all my strength to finish writing all those letters of recommendations.

It's time to step up and spring forward (almost, officially, it's 2 a.m. on March 14, 2010).

Happy Holiday!!

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day.

I'm so excited, I can hardly wait.

Around my house, February 2nd might as well be April 12th, because although it's NOT "Big Wind Day," (that holiday blows me away) it IS the only day of the year where a giant ground squirrel known as a "Marmot," "Land Beaver," "Whistle Pig," or "Woodchuck," gets a chance to play prognosticator to a bunch of adoring U.S. citizens who are eagerly waiting to see if they get to pack their winter coats in the attic trunk, or if they have a good excuse to overeat and wear silly looking sock hats for 6 more weeks.

It does seem kind of silly to watch a Marmot emerge from his den, decide if his reactions constitute him NOT seeing his shadow, then inferring that it means that the cold snap is soon to end, and to infer that if his reactions imply that he HAS seen his shadow, that we are due precisely 1.5 months of Winter. Silly, perhaps, but people have been married and wars have been started over much sillier concepts (take the American Revolution, for instance, where England, WAY over there across the Atlantic told American Colonists to follow its rules, to send them most of their money, to not brush their teeth, and to drive on the left side of the road--Outlandish!!!)

Now, if it were any old groundhog (do you think they got their name because they ran off all the moles, rabbits, and other burrowing animals??), then my family and I wouldn't take any more stock in the annual holiday than we do with the evening forecast on the local news channels. But this is not an ordinary Marmot, no! It's Punxsutawney Phil, a dapper little rodent from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a city renown for its funny name, the proclivity of its local men to don overcoats and top hats, and their bizarre fascination for Whistle Pigs.


With Christmas and New Year's recently behind us, I'm excited about the next BIG holiday. While it isn't a day we get to miss work and school for (officially . . . YET), my family and I still adorn our house with a myriad of Groundhog Day decorations (quit laughing. yes, they DO make them). With lit candles (rodent scent), we festoon the small crawl space in the hall closet beneath the stairs with brown streamers to simulate the actual "Gobbler's Knob" where the "Real" Phil lives (I hear they replace him every year, and that he lives in Jersey on the other 354 days of the year). Our hand-made banners are strew throughout the house stating our individual result preferences of what Phil will do (we tell ourselves that we can "agree to disagree.") Phrases like "Shadow Please. I LOVE to sneeze" or "No Shad-OW, Cold's gotta go" become rallying points as my son, daughter, and wife align against me (if it weren't for them, I'd live in Montana and have my own pet woodchuck, whereby I'd teach him chuck wood.)

What my family doesn't realize is that I REALLY want winter to continue NOT because I enjoy having all the "dead from not being watered and not from being frozen" plants in my garage taking up my wood shop space in my garage, but because I simply don't like to sweat, and by "sweat," I don't mean work (like the work involved in taking all the dead plants back outside again), but rather the actual act of having to perspire because I'm HOT. This is the same reason I keep my classroom as cold as possible (it also helps to preserver the math). Besides, if it stays cold for another 6 weeks, that's more time to snuggle and spoon . . . but I've said too much.

So anyway, tomorrow might be just another February 2nd to you, and winter is going to come and go as it pleases (several times a season here in Texas), but to ME, its a day that pays homage to the fact that prediction, especially about the future, is so easy, a cute rodent can do it, and how we, as humans, have an inherent desire to look forward and report/talk about things, even if it means looking forward to something we don't desire.

At least we always have something to talk about: If Phil's correct, we marvel at how nature enables it's creatures with innate, accurate instincts. If Phil's wrong, we marvel at how grown men in tuxedos can place all their beliefs in the animalistic whims of a rodent.

Gotta go.

It's time for me to light the "Rodent-smelling" candle and dust off my top hat.