Check My Arithmetic

Wednesday. Sophomore math, eighth period. 

While most of Mr. R's classes are co-taught, his eighth period is not, which means that I get to teach it. Woo-hoo!

They just started a unit on geometry. (Back in the day, freshmen took algebra 1, sophomores took geometry, and juniors took algebra 2. Nowadays they've mixed all the topics up and distributed them over the three years differently.) We did a day of definitions (which they should have learned the previous year), and on this day it was time to go over some problems having to do with those definitions. 

I showed the kiddos how to set up one of the problems. I gave them some time to try it out. And then I worked it out with them to make sure they knew what they were doing. 

As I worked the problem, I got to a point where I had to subtract two numbers. And I paused. 

I tell this like a joke, but it's true. I got through calculus just fine, but I stumble when it comes to arithmetic. 

I mean, I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But not fast, and not well. 

Give me an algebra problem, and I have no problem. Geometry is even easier. I took four semesters of calculus in college. I majored in physics. I can do the math. Just not the arithmetic. 

I was trying to subtract two numbers in front of the class. It was something like 123 - 15. The mental gymnastics weren't happening. A student helpfully provided me with the 108. 

And so, I admitted my problem. I told them, "Seriously, check my arithmetic." 

I figure it's better to admit it. They all use calculators, anyway. I'd rather they catch me if I write down the wrong number. If they let me know where I made an error, I can fix it right away, thereby not confusing them with mistakes. 

As I proceeded through the page of problems, I made sure to check the key, just in case. I didn't make any major errors. I miswrote a bunch of things (I wrote a 6 when I meant to write an x), but I got the arithmetic mostly right. 

Still, I'll never entirely trust myself. It's too easy for me to slip up. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Bigger

Wednesday. Second period sophomore math (again). 

Why is it always second period? Anyway...

Mr. Y had an IEP meeting, so it was just me and them. But no worries, as the topic was geometry, and I felt quite comfortable teaching it. 

Just after 9 AM, Alonzo left class. He had cleared it with me ahead of time as the band had a performance. I had seen the email, so I knew it was legit. But the boys were offended that he had gotten up and gone. (Before Alonzo left, he caught my eye and reminded me he was going. I nodded to indicate that was fine.) It was as if they were in charge, or something. 

I explained that Alonzo had left with permission, and it wasn't anything that the boys needed to be concerned with. Alonzo would be performing for the assembly for the sixth graders.

Sixth graders? 

Okay, so all the sixth graders from the local feeder elementary schools were going to be on campus for a kind of preview day. (The middle school is kind of attached to the high school. Long story.) They've only been doing this for a couple years, so it's a relatively new thing. Anyway, the high school band, color guard, cheerleaders, and choir were performing along with their middle school counterparts. 

The boys seemed to think that meant an assembly for the high schoolers. Yeah, no. Class was as normal for those not involved in specific activities. 

I continued on discussing how two adjacent angles could be added together. 

And then, the sixth graders appeared. 

This classroom is on the bottom floor of the STEAM building, and it has great big windows. 

We can see everyone who passes by. Mr. Y is fond of the view as he can see his students, especially those who arrive late. (I kind of feel like we're in a fishbowl, but I'm only there for a couple weeks.) 

So, of course we could also see the classes of sixth graders arriving and making their way through campus. 

I pointed this out to the class. They looked over. 

Some of the sixth graders waved. A few of the students waved back. 

(I had more time than material to cover, and I thought it was fun.) 

The students' main comment: "Why are they so small?"

Funnily enough, this is not the first time I've heard this comment. I assured the students that the sixth graders were normal sized for their age. They were just bigger now.

They weren't quite sure I was right. It just seems wrong to them, somehow. I'm not sure why. 

The sixth graders had passed us, so I went back to reminding them that all the angles in a triangle add up to 180°. 

And just like that, it's April. The only thing that changes around here is my titling. My personal game is to make my usual posts fit the letter of the day. Sometimes they just fall into place, like today. Other days I have to work a bit harder at it. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Angry

A long time ago, I was taught that there are really only two emotions: love and fear. All other emotions are built on the foundation of one or both of those. 

I don't know if that's completely true, but it is a useful construct. It sometimes helps me get to the root of what I'm feeling. 

I am angry. Very, very angry. But anger is just fear aimed outward. And I am very, very afraid. 

What has happened to us here in the U.S.? A lot of fear that hucksters looking to enrich themselves have fed upon. 

And too many people who have not realized the horrors we now live with. They are disappearing people. We have concentration camps. And the ghouls in charge are feeding off of the pain. 

I created the above banner so I'd have an image for my Tuesday posts, and the idea was to write about things that I could do, but I'm feeling rather hopeless at the moment. So, let me see if I can find some things to do that are proactive. 

If you are outside of the U.S., the one thing you can do is to not come here. For any reason. Perhaps losing tourist dollars might wake some people up. Besides, it's not actually safe. Many countries have issued travel warnings (for good reason), and innocent people have been detained for reasons that wouldn't have been a problem just a few short months ago. 

And boycotting U.S. made goods is already having an impact. 

There's a bunch of events planned for April 5th. (If you're over 60, check out this website.) I mentioned this last week. 

Calling your reps is still something I advocate. Especially if you have reps that support the regime. They're already avoiding doing town halls (because they're afraid of being yelled at). So much so that some Dem reps are going to neighboring districts to hear those concerns. (My rep has been doing this.) The more of their constituents register complaints, the more they may fear their jobs are in jeopardy. Perhaps they might be influenced to vote for not terrible things. Maybe. 

I found a couple interesting articles that some might find useful. The first one is ten things you can do to resist neofascism. The other is 198 methods of non-violent action. Check them out. Perhaps they might give you some ideas. 

Finally, are you talking to your friends and neighbors? Some have gone full cult, and are unreachable, but some might be woken if enough of their circle keep after them. We need to change minds. If enough of us resist, it makes it harder for the regime to destroy us. 

Today is April 1st, and yes, I am doing the A to Z Challenge. Don't worry, my theme isn't political. Only my Tuesday posts are political. 

I don't have a theme. I play a game. I post as normal. My challenge is to make what I'd normally post fit the letter of the day. And Tuesday is my "do something" day. (At least it is now. I haven't been able to do my "what if?" posts since the election. They feel wrong, somehow.) 

Tomorrow I go back to the substitute teaching of it all. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Leaving the Mistakes

I got all the way to stuffing the cat, and it finally looks like a cat. To me. But sadly, when I took pictures, it just looks like a lumpy pillow.

I tried taking pictures of it from its "face", but still, it does not look like a cat in the photo.

There's even an ear started there. In person, totally a cat in progress. In photos, nope. 

But that's okay. I've got so little left that I should (fingers crossed) finish this this week, and next week it should look like a cat in photos. I even have a title all picked out that'll fit with F-day for the A to Z Challenge. 

(Yes, I'm doing the challenge. No, I don't have a "theme", which is part of the reason I hadn't mentioned it before. Nothing really changes here as my game is to fit the letter of the day to what I'd normally post. Wish me luck.) 

As you can see, I kind of started the ear, and then I stopped. I would have ripped it out, but I thought it would help the photo. 

It was in the starting of the ear that I figured out the second thing I have screwed up in the making of this cat. I was joining the rounds wrong. Sigh. 

I'm not fixing it now. I know what happened. I set the thing down for months, and then rather than rereading the intro notes, I just kept on. Actually, this is a failing in the pattern, I think. They should have written out how the rounds were joined in the pattern itself. I knew where I left off, but some things slip my mind when I haven't worked a project for a while.

I can't see the difference, so I'm not going to worry about it. (Besides, I prefer amigurumi to be worked in a spiral, anyway.) 

That was the second thing I'd done wrong. The first? I didn't need to switch yarns. I'm so bad at estimating how much yarn I need. I didn't realize I was so close to finishing the thing off. 

But again, I'm leaving it. I'll do the ears in the variegated, and I'll do the tail in the straight gray, and it'll look deliberate. This means I have less of both skeins of yarn, which was the whole point of this project, anyway. 

The cat posts so far: 

• Yarn Under my Fingers
• Not Quite a Cat

The Gambler

Wednesday. Second period, sophomore math. (Yes, the same group I discussed yesterday.)

Second period had four boys who just... They'd spend the period hanging out, not paying attention to the math of it all. 

Mr. Y (the co-teacher) had enough, and on Wednesday he separated them to the four corners of the room. So, of course, the obvious happened. Rather than keeping their little party to themselves, they were now talking across the room. Sigh. 

The topic of conversation turned to sports betting. Because one of the boys, Ximenez, has a problem. In the previous class, he talked about how he had won a parlay, but he lost all his winnings on other bets. 

Funnily enough, I was only aware of the terminology at all because my Sunday night show's topic had been about sports betting on apps. In case you'd like to take a look:

(I suppose I should warn you about John Oliver. The show is on HBO, and they take advantage of being allowed to use all the adult language. And the jokes can be a bit juvenile. Along with some good info.)

I held it in as long as I could, but then I spoke up and explained to Ximenez that perhaps the gambling wasn't a good idea. (Especially since I caught him watching a baseball game on his phone rather than taking down the notes that Mr. Y had been giving them earlier in the period.) 

Of course Ximenez didn't see my point and denied that he had a problem. Sigh.

(Okay, so before you ask, yes, Ximenez is a minor. Sophomore. I just looked up his age. He's actually a junior. He's 16--he'll be 17 in a bit under two weeks. I am not surprised this junior is in a sophomore-level class. Clearly he failed a math class in his high school career.) 

He claimed that he'd give it up after... Oh, I don't know. He gave me a couple different times he'd give it up, and I wasn't listening. Because there was a guy in one of the clips Oliver showed that said the exact same thing. Which I pointed out. But Ximenez again wasn't seeing my point. 

This is how gambling problems start. Sadly, there was nothing I was going to say that Ximenez would hear. Not now.

I did recommend the episode. (I knew they post it on YouTube after the episode airs.) Yes, I know it's not really a good show for a minor, but if anyone could get through to him, it'd be through humor, not preaching. 

Ximenez's response? He had a parlay going, and if he won, he'd get $400. And he'd give me $20. (I told him to keep the money. He assumed he'd win. I rather thought the opposite.)

By the time you read this, we should know how that bet went. I don't believe that Ximenez is going to actually follow up with me (and I will likely forget the next time he's in class). 

Edited to add: On Monday Ximenez informed me that... he lost the parlay.

The Boys

Sophomore math. Second period. Monday.

Second period is the class. Every teacher has one. The difficult group. 

This class is made difficult by four boys. They all sit over in one corner of the room, and they spend the period goofing off. Although, they held it together for their test. But during working time...

The previous class period (Wednesday, the day we found out), had been the test. So, on Monday they were starting a new unit on geometry. They had a "what do you remember?" worksheet. And while most of the class was busy trying to remember things (or looking them up on their phones--this was permitted), the boys were playing around. 

They were eating in class even after being asked specifically not to. (Ximenez: "But it's fruit.") They were discussing some new album that some rapper had released. They were talking about gambling. (Jasper to Ximenez: "You keep all but $10 of your winnings, and then bet the $10. You don't bet all of your winnings...") 

If I had been alone and writing this incident in my note to the teacher, I would have said the boys "were having way too much fun". It's not that they shouldn't have fun, but they were clearly not on task. 

But that rap album was too hard to resist. One boy had to play it out. (They have headphones/earbuds. They can listen to music on their own and not blast it for the whole class to hear.) 

Mr. Y warned them to turn it off. And they did, for a time.

But then they played it out again. And again. And again. 

I warned them that it was time to take their phones if they couldn't be trusted to not play music in class. (Me: "I don't want to hear anything coming from your phones.")

But, of course...

This time, Mr. Y went over there and took the phones from two of the boys. Who both claimed that they were not the ones playing the music. 

And yet, the music stopped after that. 

I doubt the boys got any of the work completed. The period finished, and everyone left. Everyone, except the two boys whose phones Mr. Y still had. 

Mr. Y looked at them. I pointed out he still had their phones. 

The boys: "We'll tell you who was playing the music..."

No one knew when class was in session, but after... Yeah. Getting their phones back was a great motivator. 

Not that Mr. Y was going to keep their phones. (He could turn them in to the main office, but considering the situation, it was way more trouble than it was worth. This is a minor cell phone infraction, really.) 

Once the boys left (with their phones), Mr. Y expressed his frustration with the class. Yup, I understood. So, because the boys had been getting on his last nerve, Mr. Y decided it was time to break the group up. New seats for them all.

They did not like this. It helped settle them enough so Mr. Y could teach the class the next period. But after, when they were doing independent work, the boys continued their conversation... across the room. Sigh. 

Booked

I am writing this blog post on Friday, and I just picked up a gig for April 1st. That I'll likely have to drop. Because that's just how this semester has been going.

Ever since this district joined the 21st Century and adopted the computerized booking system, getting gigs is a matter of jumping on them when they pop up on the app on my phone. But I've been letting a lot of those go by lately. 

At the beginning of this semester, at the beginning of January, I had three weeks in that geography/psychology/world history class for a teacher recovering from surgery. 

As that gig ended, I started picking up a bunch of gigs for February. I had about half the month booked when I got the email asking me if I would pick up that special ed long term, the math and world history one. Which (if you've been following along with me, you know) I did. 

There was something sad about watching all the gigs I had picked up, one by one, getting deleted in one big purge. The jobs had to go to other subs as I was going to be busy. I mean, I don't begrudge others having them. It was just how much time and effort it took to fill my month now gone even though my month was going to be busy with the long-term. 

So, again, as that special ed gig was ending, I again went about picking up a bunch of gigs for March. But I've been holding off on taking anything in April. 

Back in something like September, I got an email from a teacher I had done a long term assignment for in the past. She'd be out in the spring as she was pregnant with her second child. Would I be willing to cover? 

Her maternity leave started in February, but because subs can only cover 30 days, she had another sub start when she left, and I'll continue once the first sub finishes her 30 days. Around the beginning of April. 

Which meant that I had March to fill. And, I had just about filled it. Well, I had made a good start, anyway.

But on my last Friday in the special ed long term, I got an email from a secretary (at a different school, so she didn't know I was finishing a long term) about covering a week for a teacher who was suddenly going to be out. 

Sure, I said. And then I sadly dropped all the gigs from that week as I would be busy. 

That's the math class I wrote about last week. 

But, it turns out that Mr. R's foot problem is worse than first thought. When it seemed like the issue might last longer, I went to the secretary and told her that I just had day-to-day assignments for March, so I could drop them and remain in Mr. R's class if necessary. 

On Monday I got word that it would be necessary. 

And so, again, there went two weeks of gigs I had grabbed as they popped up. Sigh. 

It's almost like I shouldn't bother. 

I'm not sure exactly what day I start the long term English class I've been anticipating. The sub desk hasn't officially added me for it. (I know she will. When it's closer.) So, I'm not sure what day it'll start. (The current sub took a sick day, so it got pushed a day out further.)

And, we're not sure if Mr. R will return on April 1st (which is when he's currently scheduled to return). 

But I picked up a gig for April 1st. Which I might end up not doing. Because. 

I mean, at least I've been working steadily. And the days I hoarded ended up going to subs who might not have gotten them otherwise. 

So, I've got two more weeks in that math class. (Well, one more week by the time you read this.) And then the English class that'll take me to nearly the end of May. Better booked than not, I suppose.