Learn Me Gooder (16 page)

After school today, one of our math tutors, a retired teacher named Mrs. Eastgate, came into my room to tell me a funny story. She’s been working with a few of my kids every day, and hopefully it’s making a difference. She had read a word problem with the group that said, “Mary went to the store and bought 2 pairs of shoes. Each pair of shoes cost $25. How much money did Mary spend at the store?”

Mrs. Eastgate told me that after hearing the problem, Franco had leaned over to her and whispered, “Mary should have gone to the Family Dollar store.”

That’s a very thoughtful observation from Franco, and it might be a reflection of the type of critical thinking I’ve been trying to get during science class where we’ve been talking about changes to the environment. Changes on a global scale that is, not localized changes like Larry passing gas in your cubicle.

Today, I gave the kids a quiz called “Helpful or Harmful?” I gave them a list of events that could happen, and they had to decide whether it was helpful or harmful to that environment. They also had to write down some way that that event would change the environment.

For instance, the first event was, “Trees are cut down to build new houses.” For the most part, the kids agreed that this would be harmful to the environment. I was very impressed with Tomas, who said that one effect this would have on the environment would be to reduce the amount of oxygen available. Some of the other responses were not quite as impressive, but still memorable. Here are a few.
Event: Filling up a pond to make a parking lot.
Responses:
“Harmful, because the frogs would have no place to swim the fish would die and turn into fossils.”
“Harmful, because the fish live there and they wanted their home.”
“Helpful – putting cement is helpful because it’s making the water clean.”
I think someone has cement confused with fluoride.
Event: Collecting old newspapers in the neighborhood for recycling.
Responses:
“Helpful because it will make less trash on the floor.”
“Helpful – so people can’t read the newspapers anymore.”
So by not reading math problems, the kids are actually trying to be helpful?
Event: A flood brings fertile soil to a river bank.
Responses:
“Harmful – the river bank will look gross.”
“Harmful – a flood is bad, it mostly comes from the toilet and it can be very nasty n-a-s-t-e and it can ruin the soil on the land.”
“Harmful – no one would be able to pay money at the river bank.”
That last one was my favorite response on the entire quiz.
Event: Building a bird house and feeder in your backyard.
Best response:
“Harmful – garden will be destroyed.”
Well sure, if you let the folks from Extreme Home Makeover: Bird Feeder Edition take the job!

I found it both fun and insightful to read the kids’ thoughts on this quiz. And now here’s one for you. Was Victor being Helpful or Harmful?

On our way out to the playground today after lunch, Victor was walking alongside me. He glanced over and asked, “Mr. Woodson, what happened to your balls?”

Honestly, I wasn’t quite prepared for that one, and I had no idea how to respond. Somehow resisting the urge to look down at or grab my crotch, I asked, “Excuse me?”

He nonchalantly continued, “How come we don’t take your basketballs outside anymore?”

Relief washed over me, so much so that I almost said, “Oh, because I didn’t feel like you guys were handling my balls with the proper respect.”

Instead, I figured I would leave the (intentional) double entendres for classic Saturday Night Live skits.

TGIF!
Talk to you later,
Balzac Johnson

I learned over the weekend that Jill has never seen any of the Star Wars movies! I was trying to impress her by telling her about my YouTube video, Darth Vader Explains the Pythagorean Theorem, but I hit a wall. I guess there’s no point in telling her about my sequel ideas – Han Solo Demonstrates a Fourier Transform, Boba Fett Proves the Quadratic Equation, or Yoda Discusses Unified String Theory.

She hasn’t seen these movies YET, anyway. My plan to sit her down with the original trilogy is absolutely Helpful, whereas it sounds like Latya’s excessive use of his new goatee wax is undoubtedly Harmful.

Also Harmful was the decision by Patrick, my new Behavioral Unit charge, to feel up the new teacher’s assistant today. The poor girl has only been here a week, and already she’s been groped by a nine-year-old. Welcome to the jungle.

As a result, Patrick has been de-mainstreamed and will no longer be joining Felicia in my class for science.

Patrick’s actions are very controversial, and I’m about to make a very controversial statement myself. I’m starting to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not very good at math. Yeah, I’m talking about THAT Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I’ve been working on multiplication and division word problems with my students, and I’ve noticed a striking similarity between some of their answer choices and a famous story from the New Testament.

Just imagine if this was a word problem, posed to the young gospel writers:
“Jesus has 5 loaves of bread. He wants to split the bread equally among 1,000 people who are hungry. How many loaves of bread will each person receive?”

Now, if MML&J tackled this problem the way many of MY students would, they would multiply 5 times 1,000 and get 5,000.

Each person will receive 5,000 loaves of bread.

No wonder everyone ate to their fill and there was a multitude still left over!

In the case of the Gospel story, this is referred to as a miracle, and I happen to believe in its veracity. Not so much with my kids.

On the test I gave last Friday, one question was, “Mrs. Martin has 30 pieces of candy. She wants to give the same amount of candy to 10 students. How many pieces of candy will each student get?”

Every time I saw an answer of 300 (or 40, from my kids who still think that adding is the only way to solve any math problem), I kept wanting to exclaim, “Hallelujah! It’s a MIRACLE!!”

It’s one thing to try to teach problem solving skills and operational procedures. Trying to teach logical thinking and common sense, though, is another (nearly impossible) thing entirely. Back to the Helpful or Harmful conceit, it would be so very Helpful if the FDA would hurry up and develop a drug called Logitrex, because so many of the kids at my school seem to be allergic to thinking!

This morning, I was trying to explain to the kids why the answer to one word problem did not make sense. The question was something along the lines of, “Herbert is 19 years old. His sister is 17 years old. How much older is Herbert than his sister?”

Many of my kids had added the two numbers and gotten 36 as their answer. Franco had added the two numbers together and gotten 26. Of course, if Herbert was only 19 years old, he could not possibly be 36 years OLDER than anyone else. As a living example, I said to the kids, “I am 36 years old. The only person I am 36 years OLDER than is...”

At this point, Priya raised her hand and blurted out, “ME??”

I continued, “is someone who was just born today. You might ACT like you were just born today, but we all know that’s not really true.”

Totally missing the point, Priya replied, “No, I was born April 1st.”

All I could say was, “That sounds about right.”

The other kids weren’t interested in “Priya’s a Fool” Day, though. As usual, the reveal of a teacher’s age brought on more discussion than the latest Lady Gaga costume. (Never mind the fact that this is not the first time they have heard my age.)

“You’re 36?!??”

“I thought you were 24!”

“I thought you were 100!”

And the one that really struck my fancy – “You look taller than 36.”

Yes, children, I’m as tall as a 50-year-old. Way to restore my faith in your logical reasoning abilities.

Seriously, we need that Logitrex, STAT!! Because otherwise, it’s going to take a miracle of biblical proportions to help some of these kids pass the TAKS.

By the way, my balls are safe and secure, thanks for asking. Nancy asked about them as well, prompting me to send her a reply asking why she never writes to me about a NORMAL story.
See ya,
Tall McCartney

I think you’re right. If I brought Philby in to the classroom and asked the kids how old he was, they probably WOULD guess 12 or 14, if they were going by height.

And FYI, I was just using the loaves and fishes story as an example. I never said I was going to create a mathematically-themed version of the Bible, so don’t get excited. But no, if I did, I would NEVER call it the King Bommerson Revised Version.

Great news today! We finally managed to get Ta’varon and Demontrae’s mom in for a conference! We’ve been trying to meet with her ever since the boys enrolled, with no luck. Phone messages went unanswered, and even though Mrs. Bird actually DID reach her twice, both times we were stood up with no explanation.

The most recent no-show was last Thursday, when she was supposed to meet us after school. Given her history, when she didn’t appear, we were about as shocked as we were when we discovered the air in our classrooms was still breathable.

Then yesterday, I acquired The Phone.

I was sitting at the overhead machine going over a word problem when the electronic chirping began. Everybody in the room froze, in that special way that kids freeze when they anticipate someone getting busted.

It was clearly coming from Ta’varon’s general area, and he stared wide-eyed at me with an expression that was one part, “I have no earthly idea why my pants are buzzing,” and four parts, “Please don’t break out the cattle prod!” I held out my hand expectantly to him, and he grudgingly gave the phone to me. I flipped it open and answered it, but the caller had already hung up. That didn’t stop me from carrying on a one-sided conversation, though, as Ta’varon stood nervously in front of me.

“Hello? No, I’m sorry, this is Mr. Woodson, Ta’varon’s math teacher. Ta’varon is in class right now and can’t take any calls. Please don’t call him between 7:30 and 3:30. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Fortunately, Ta’varon didn’t ask who had called, because I probably would have answered something ridiculous, like SpongeBob Squarepants or Cobra Commander.

I asked Ta’varon why he had a cell phone at school. He insisted that it wasn’t his, that someone had dropped it outside, and he had just picked it up. I wasn’t convinced. So a little while later, while the kids were busy, I pulled up the phone’s contact list and looked through the numbers. Under one listed as “Granny,” there was a number with a 620 area code. Kansas. Ta’varon and Demontrae are FROM Kansas. Coincidence? I think not.

I walked across the hall and pulled Demontrae out of Mrs. Bird’s class. I showed him the phone, told him I had found it, and asked if he knew whose it was.

With a sneer, he informed me that it belonged to his older brother who was in middle school.

BUSTED!!

Needless to say, Ta’varon immediately lost recess privileges for a couple of days. But more importantly, I now had a phone with a listing for “Ma.”

After school, I dialed the number and was greeted with a somewhat angry, “What you callin’ me now for?”

I identified myself and told her that we missed seeing her on Thursday. In a much more subdued voice, she offered an excuse. “Yeah, I been feeling a bit sick. Cough, cough.”

Yes, my friend, she actually fake coughed in an attempt to validate her claim.

Pretending I didn’t hear that part, I told her we’d still like her to come up to the school to talk with us, and now also to pick up the cell phone. She said she’d come the next day.

I asked her to show up by 3:30. “Don’t come in too late, because sometimes I get sleepy after school. Yawn.”

Imagine my shock when I actually got called out of class this morning around 8:30 to meet with her and Ms. Zapata, the assistant principal, in the conference room. Demontrae and Ta’varon were also there.

In a nutshell, the conference lasted about twenty minutes and included the bold, if somewhat suspect, statement from the mother that Demontrae would be going back to Kansas to live with his father in about two weeks. I’ll believe that when I see it. Cough, cough.

Ta’varon can certainly be troublesome at times, but there’s just something about the kid that makes me like him. At the end of anything that involves writing, where most kids write, “The End,” Ta’varon writes, “Have a great day.” He laughs at my jokes. He participates in class. He gets along well with his classmates. He’s ok. He’s just lazy, like so many of the others.

Demontrae, on the other hand, is mean and sullen. He never has a kind word and acts like a caged animal. If he really is moving out of state, I’d love to help him pack.

I did make it perfectly clear during the conference that cell phones are not allowed in class. In fact, the only instance a child would ever need to use a cell phone in my class would be to call for help if I was on the floor being eaten by a cougar.

And the class I have this year has already proven that they wouldn’t call 911 in such a case. They’d move closer to the cougar!
Talk to you later,
Arthur Phonezerelli

You really didn’t have to include the phrase, “Clickety clack” after EVERY sentence. I pretty much understood that you were composing an email after the first few times. Way to commit and follow through to the end, though. This is definitely résumé gold.

I most definitely support your resolution to end every technical paper with “Have a great day” from now on. I’ll be sure to let Ta’varon know that he was such an inspiration. I know that Paul, Reggie, and Bert will be relieved that you’ve stopped writing “The End” at the close of every memo.