End of Another School Year

School ends on Friday.  The kids have been ready for school to be over since our state tests ended.  That was in March.  We've continued to wait around and muddle through extensive topics like surface area and the quadratic equation.  I've continued to hope that they'd learn something along the way.  The last portion of my Pre Algebra final was an essay question that stated, "Now that the year is over, tell me what you learend in math."  Some of the responses were fabulous, but had nothing to do with math.  

Student A

I learned that if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all.  I learned that I will never use math in my life or for my job, so I'd better do a good job in school so that I'll never have to deal with math.  

Student B

I can't remember anything I learned, but I know it was a lot.

Student C

You should come teach math at the high school.  

Student D

We learned about numbers.  

Seems to me that last one is a little vague.  

We have nothing to do with our last few days of school because the final exam is over and I am not assigning work to the students.  To mix things up I'm offering extra credit for each geometric construction that is neatly completed and colored.  I see very little practical application for geometric construction but they are fun and I've gained further appreciation for applications like prinshop that make my life easier by making me not draw perfect pentagons.  

I Snapped at My Neighbor

I've been annoyed several times through the year at my neighbor in school.  He likes to follow the rules and I do too.  Sometimes I get a little lax over the whole no gum in school policy.  I figure that if my worse problem is that my kids chew gum then I'm doing pretty well.  My neighbor likes to come peek in on my class occasionally.  I normally take his catching kids with gum in stride and laught it off.  I couldn't take it anymore on Tuesday and I finally snapped at him when he came into my class and announced that a student was chewing gum.  I whipped around and loudly stated, "I don't care!"  He sulked back to his room.  I felt elated that I'd finally stood up to him for one minute at most.  After a miserable fifth hour thinking of how awful I'd been I went up to him and apologized for my actions. His parting words were that all of use were getting tired and that he would have done the same thing if I'd come into his room like he had into mine.   

The funny thing is that the students are thrilled that someone stood up to their strict English teacher.  Someday they'll appreciate his strictness.  Until then I'll keep getting caught with kids who have gum.