First Week, Take 2
Aug. 18th, 2001 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaI have officially survived the first week of school. Hurrah!
My Pre-AP Algebra II kids are great. They pay attention, they do the work, they don't complain too much about homework, and they bring their materials to class. I've got a couple of chatterboxes, but I think even they'll be okay in the long run. This next week is matrices; I expect to get a lot of "how do you do that?"s from them, as they're not uniformly brilliant. (A few of them are not really AP material.) But I trust them to work hard, and that's the big thing.
The Geometry kids are pretty much the same as last year. I think they're a little better behaved, and I think the theater-style room layout does, indeed, have something to do with it. I need to work on my questioning technique - I'm losing a few people - but the walking around and looking over their shoulders frequently seems to have a positive effect. I do have a few who clearly want to do well, and starting with something they know (area) and starting slowly seems to be working better than launching directly into the abstractions of points, lines, and planes. (Which reminds me: I need to reserve either a VCR or a Lite Pro for Section 1-2, so they can see these things.)
Unfortunately, my schedule has me crashing at 9:30 pm and getting up at 5:30 am, which is not conducive to having a social life. I ducked out of the Spouse's last Movie Night altogether (although the fact that he'd invited EW and the less-pleasant M didn't encourage me to stay, I'll admit). We did have dinner with MW and JT on Friday, at a Pappas Barbecue downtown, which was nice, but neither MW nor I was up to extended socializing, since I was tired and she was ill. I hadn't been in much of a barbecue mood to begin with, although the stuffed baked potato with chopped beef wasn't bad.
RR hosted a get-together for the math department plus the administration at her place on Friday. DM drove me there, and we got lost, of course. We eventually had to ask a passing teen for directions; fortunately, he was a friend of R's son. We all sort of did an upstairs-downstairs thing; the administrators gathered in the kitchen, and the teachers and secretaries gathered in the living room. PB told the story of his summer circumnavigation of the Great Basin to WH and his Lady, who is clearly a priestess - she asked all the piercing, meaningful questions that most people don't quite manage to formulate. P mentioned along the way visiting the Methuselah trees in California; I need to visit them someday. The Spouse arrived early to take me home; I introduced him around and then we got out. I rather would have liked to hear more of the travel story.
Noah has a show tonight, which I feel bad for missing, but I'm not up to it tonight. Some old friends of his called for directions to Dan's shortly after he left. We'll see if he convinces them to come to bagels tomorrow . . .
My Pre-AP Algebra II kids are great. They pay attention, they do the work, they don't complain too much about homework, and they bring their materials to class. I've got a couple of chatterboxes, but I think even they'll be okay in the long run. This next week is matrices; I expect to get a lot of "how do you do that?"s from them, as they're not uniformly brilliant. (A few of them are not really AP material.) But I trust them to work hard, and that's the big thing.
The Geometry kids are pretty much the same as last year. I think they're a little better behaved, and I think the theater-style room layout does, indeed, have something to do with it. I need to work on my questioning technique - I'm losing a few people - but the walking around and looking over their shoulders frequently seems to have a positive effect. I do have a few who clearly want to do well, and starting with something they know (area) and starting slowly seems to be working better than launching directly into the abstractions of points, lines, and planes. (Which reminds me: I need to reserve either a VCR or a Lite Pro for Section 1-2, so they can see these things.)
Unfortunately, my schedule has me crashing at 9:30 pm and getting up at 5:30 am, which is not conducive to having a social life. I ducked out of the Spouse's last Movie Night altogether (although the fact that he'd invited EW and the less-pleasant M didn't encourage me to stay, I'll admit). We did have dinner with MW and JT on Friday, at a Pappas Barbecue downtown, which was nice, but neither MW nor I was up to extended socializing, since I was tired and she was ill. I hadn't been in much of a barbecue mood to begin with, although the stuffed baked potato with chopped beef wasn't bad.
RR hosted a get-together for the math department plus the administration at her place on Friday. DM drove me there, and we got lost, of course. We eventually had to ask a passing teen for directions; fortunately, he was a friend of R's son. We all sort of did an upstairs-downstairs thing; the administrators gathered in the kitchen, and the teachers and secretaries gathered in the living room. PB told the story of his summer circumnavigation of the Great Basin to WH and his Lady, who is clearly a priestess - she asked all the piercing, meaningful questions that most people don't quite manage to formulate. P mentioned along the way visiting the Methuselah trees in California; I need to visit them someday. The Spouse arrived early to take me home; I introduced him around and then we got out. I rather would have liked to hear more of the travel story.
Noah has a show tonight, which I feel bad for missing, but I'm not up to it tonight. Some old friends of his called for directions to Dan's shortly after he left. We'll see if he convinces them to come to bagels tomorrow . . .
