What Kind Of Business Are We Running Here?

My class is doing a project on rotations, reflections, and translations. This involves little thought...all they have to do is come up with a design, color, and write a paper to pull all of it together and tell me what they have learned (and yes I said write a paper. In math class. Get over it!) My classes today have consisted of the following questions:
1. How much do I actually have to color to get a passing grade?
2. What if I just shade in my project and don't actually color, will you take points off?
3. What will it do to my grade if I don't write the paper? Answer: Well, you'd get at best, a 90/150, which is a 60% D-. Response: Oh ok, good enough
4. If my paper is crinkled when I turn it in, will you take points off?
5. I know this is due Friday and you've given us Mon-Wed to work on this in class (plus an extra day at home) but can we have an extra day?
6. How much of this do I really have to do of this to get by?

I feel like question #6 is the general concensus of most students today, which is SUPER frustrating. It makes me want to pull my hair out. So I did what I do best, I lectured...

Mrs. Cheese: You do realize that when you get a job if you do "just enough to get by" they will find someone to replace you that works harder than that, right?

Now before I tell you the response, I do have to preface this by saying that this kid normally says funny/inappropriate stuff, but even he caught himself off-guard with this one. He said the first part, had a quick pause as he realized what he said, face immediately turned red because he knew he couldn't take it back, and finished his thought...

Boy: Mrs. Cheese, in a job it's different. You actually get paid. If you paid me, I'd put out.........more effort

Maybe I should have a project where they calculate the amount of money they could make running a personal escort business...Do I still have time to change my curriculum?

Apparently I'm Not Doing My Job...No Really

Girl: Ummmm have you updated our grades because my mom looked online last night and you haven't put in any grades since 2009
Me: Oh, you're mom must have accidentally looked at 1st semester's gradebook
Girl: Oh, well she said you hadn't put any grades in since 2009...
Me: I understand that, but I have put many, many grades in since 2009...you got a midterm grade right? I really think that your mom just accidentally looked at 1st semester's gradebook. Have her try again, and let me know if it still doesn't work.
Girl: Well my mom said that you need to get our grades in, because you haven't entered anything in since 2009...
Me: (Nod and smile)

So in this really hard time, with budget crunches, and the possibility of losing my job based on cuts, I'm going to give people even more of a reason to get rid of me...Ok, you caught me..I haven't taught since December

How To Avoid The 3rd Quarter Blues

It's that time again. Time for students to get behind and then have a major meltdown right before the end of 3rd quarter. I get a lot of questions like:
"my grade is bad, my mom wants to know if I can get some extra credit to bring it up?" and
"if I do this homework how much will it bring my grade up?"
1st, heck no! you didn't do your work the first time. And 2nd, I have no idea, maybe you should have thought about that the last 20 homework assignments.

So I have decided to compile my list of ways that students (and parents) can avoid the 3rd quarter blues and the emotional turmoil that goes along with them:

1. Do your freakin' homework! (Can you get a feel for how frustrated I get?) It is not much simpler than that. If you do your homework, not only will it help your grade, but you will only get better at the concept, therefore do better on the test. Only a genius can ace tests without doing the homework. I don't have one single genius. If you were one you wouldn't be in my class.


2. Actually study for your tests. I know, what a concept! I give you a review that looks eerily similar to the test, so chances are if you use that to study, you might do well. Not to mention that the grade formula in my class is 60/40. To make it simple, if you fail all your tests, you will fail my class no matter how well you do on your homework. But I will say that in all my many years of teaching :) I have never had a student that does all their homework and still fails all the tests. Refer to #1.


3. When I let you use a note card on the test, use it! I can't begin to tell you the number of times I have given students the opportunity to write whatever they want on an index card to use on a test and half the class will still come with nothing. But this goes back to the idea that you actually have to do some work at home.


4. When I give you half the hour to work on your homework, use it! I don't like to hear my own voice, so I hate having to lecture the whole hour. But what I hate more than that is giving students time to work and seeing them sit and waste their time talking. I feel myself repeating the threat, "I can make the notes go all hour if we aren't going to work when given time to work" a lot. I am here to answer questions and I am giving you time to finish the work so you don't have to take it home. Again, refer to #1.


5. Keep tabs on your grade (this goes for parents too) Please don't wait until right before the end of the quarter to check on your grade and freak out. In my opinion, midterm is too late to check. If you know you have a tendency to get behind, check often! I try to do a good job of getting my grades entered, so it gets frustrating when people don't use the service provided. **Side note** Also equally as frustrating is the uber-loving parent who checks my grade book everyday and emails seeing when I might be entering grades. Would you like me to teach? Just checking...


6. Do extra practice. I know this is a really hard concept for HS students to understand, but if you struggle with math sometimes a little extra practice can go a long way. But in order to have initiative to get extra practice, you have to have initiative to practice in the first place. Refer to #1.

So there they are. My tips for avoiding the 3rd quarter blues. Follow these steps and you'll be on your way to a better grade! Oh who am I kidding, probably not. What do I know? I'm just the teacher.

Sometimes I Surprise Myself

I'm getting a little more tech savvy. I've always been pretty good with computers, but when I first started playing around with this blog, the HTML coding scared the bejeebers out of me. I've been getting a little better at it, and while it does take a little practice, I have to say I've surprised myself. Hopefully now I can just do a better job at actually remembering to blog when things happen. I'm pretty bad about that.

Cough Harder Dangit!

It's been a really long time since I've blogged. Maybe I've been so busy I haven't had time. So busy grading, planning, contacting parents, dealing with the 3rd quarter blues, etc. Or maybe it's because I didn't have anything good to blog about. I still don't have much exciting, but I did feel the need to get on here and rant about what has become one of my biggest pet peeves. The whimpy cough. Now, I know that when you're a teenager you get embarrassed about the tiniest things, but geez people, cough like you mean it. I am sitting at my desk right now while the kids are working on their homework (caught up on my grades/planning/contacting parents/dealing with 3rd quarter blues, so get off my back) and this girl in front of my desk keeps coughing. Little tiny, phlemy lung coughs. I just want to scream, "COUGH LIKE YOU MEAN IT GIRL!" Let it all out!! Nobody Cares!! The sound of wimpy coughs is beginning to make my skin crawl. This is worse than its close relative, the wimpy nose blow. Not only do I think you should cough/blow with a purpose, but I don't want your icky germs, so get it out the first time. Please!

Only In The Midwest

Kid #1: My mom was in labor for 15 hours when she had me
Kid #2: My aunt had her baby in 5 minutes!
Kid #3: I had a cow that did that once...

The Time Traveling Teacher

I love the fact that people in this profession have no clue what we do every day. I think they go to sleep at night thinking that I must spend every waking hour grading, planning, making notes, and making copies. It's almost laughable...almost...I love overachievers...really I do...but this was a little much. It made me laugh a little at first...

OA (over achiever): Ummmmm Mrs. Cheese I was wondering if you know what we are going to be doing on May 10th and 11th?
Me: Come again??
OA: I wanted to know what we are going to be doing on May 10th and 11th. I am going to be gone and I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to make up. My dad made me ask.
Me: Ask me on May 8th.

First I thought it was a little endearing that she thought to ask so early. Funny for sure because as all teachers know it is absolutely ridiculous to know that far in advance. Maybe I'm naive and I should have my whole year planned out, but I rough sketch my quarter plans, then plan in-depth every Monday morning for that week. I know there are some teachers out there that have all this under control, but not me. After I got over the internal giggling that I had, I stopped to think...What the hell was this parent thinking?? Does he really think that I would seriously know what we are doing on those days?!?!?! How bout I call him and ask him what he will be doing at work on May 10th and 11th?!?! WHO KNOWS THESE THINGS?!?! I barely know what I'm doing next hour, let alone next year!!!!!!! Which goes back to my theory that people think that we have no lives...or that once we teach something for one year, we do the exact same thing the next year. SO. NOT. TRUE.