Teaching Thursdays #102

My students and I got into an interesting discussion last week that I hadn’t anticipated when we were talking about percents.  Because of that discussion, I added this question to their exam review packet today:

Suppose you are buying something for $1,000.  It is on sale for 6% less than the original price, and tax on the item is also 6%.  Is the final price $1,000?  Explain.

So that’s your homework. 

(P.S.  The “Explain” part is the important piece of this problem.  At this point in the semester, my students are sooooo tired of my “Explain” questions but that’s what this course is all about!)

Life in the fastlane

I am thinking about upgrading (from dial-up) to a faster internet connection at home.  (And yes, the world may be coming to an end — I’ve resisted this for a long time!)

I absolutely do NOT want to use my cable provider for internet service — I don’t even want to use them for my TV but I don’t have choices (other than to cancel cable altogether, which I may do if I can get my two favorite cable shows over the internet instead).  I also don’t think I want to use my current ISP for a faster connection, though that is certainly an option (it just requires more equipment).

My preference at the moment would be to use the phone company’s service.  (The phone company starts with an A and has some T’s in it.  You know the one!)  They are offering high-speed internet service for free for six months right now (I like free!), and though I’m sure there are strings attached to the freeness (like you have to sign up for their service for 100 years), I was thinking of using them anyway, so free is just the icing.

Do any of you use the phone company for your internet service?  Any thoughts or warnings?

11.10.9

Earlier this year, on some random Tuesday (maybe in March?), I was inundated with greetings from people wishing me…umm…Happy Prime Number Day!  Or something like that.  I don’t even remember anymore.  It was apparently announced on both national and local radio that it was a special day for some math related reason.  I just remember thinking that someone just made that up.  Unlike Pi Day (3.14), which is a real holiday.  *giggles*

So, in response to someone else’s made up holiday, I’m declaring today as Countdown Day!  11.10.9.  We’ll celebrate it next year on 12.11.10 too, and then we won’t be able to celebrate it again until 2101.

So there!

Autumn 2009

Feelings

Three months ago today, I decided to leave grad school.  I had been thinking about it off and on since January, but I kept going back and forth about it and knew that the decision couldn’t be made while my mind was still waffling.  As long as there was some spark or drive, I would stay.  So I generally didn’t think about it, and just put one foot in front of the other, until my level of frustration and loss of interest in the whole process brought everything to a screeching halt.  And on a Saturday night in August, it occurred to me again that I didn’t have to do this, that the effort was not worth the payoff for me, that 2/3 of my reason for being in grad school no longer rang true.  I had such clarity that it was over, I was finished.

Two days later, I went to school and tied up loose ends, and I left.  And it was one of the biggest and best decisions that I have ever made.

But in these first months afterward, it also feels a little like I’ve broken up with someone.  Not that I have much experience with that, but the feelings sure seem right on.  I feel relief to no longer be in a profoundly stressful and “not right for me” situation, but also sad that I am cut off from the experience that was my entire life a year ago.  My mind was very wrapped up in school and now doesn’t quite know where to go.  In some ways, I am heartbroken that things turned out as they did.  Even with the certainty of knowing I did what was best for me, I know I lost a lot in leaving and there is an odd sort of grief to process with that.  Doesn’t that sound like breaking up?  Where you have a lot invested in the process, your whole life is entangled with it, and you feel some sense of security in the future…and then…you don’t?  It’s over.  And it’s all for the best but it still hurts and requires coping and leaning on friends and waiting for a time until you can reinvest in another path.

Yes, I think it’s just like that.

A trio of delights

1.  It’s going to be 64 degrees here today!  That’s a perfect temperature.  Sum-sum-summertime!  :-)

2.  Hillary is also participating in NaBloPoMo.  I thought I was going to be the only one, but not so!  Hooray!

3.  Google has made me smile the last several days with their Sesame Street themed logos (in honor of Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary).  Today is Oscar the Grouch, but the best was Thursday’s Cookie Monster (if you missed it, you need to time travel back to Thursday — so worth it!)

Wellness

I went to the doctor again this morning.  I no longer have flu symptoms, but my body was kind of hyper-reactive to my normal life this week.  I lectured on Tuesday and my lungs were still fired up on Thursday from lectures 48 hours earlier.  And my throat and ears were also getting inflammed and painful along with my lungs.  Ugh.  My body seemed to be the very definition of an “itis” this week — bronchitis and pharyngitis and whatever you call inner ear inflammation (without ear infection).  The doc put me on strong drugs intended to stop my lungs from reacting, and we’re hoping that will stop the chain reaction that’s causing all the other pains.

I was thinking yesterday that I haven’t had a lot of Wellness in my life this fall.  As soon as I had the thought, I got out my yoga mat and did some long stretches.  That definitely helps but I need to think about what else I can do, even in the middle of all this “itis,” to feel like my body is more healthy than not, to feel like my life is moving toward good things.

Teaching Thursdays #101

One of the ongoing debates in math education is how realistic the curriculum should be.

One on end of the battle are the serious math folks, who think math stands alone and teaching it abstractly is fine.  Math IS abstract and putting everything into a context just undermines students as they move forward, and potentially makes it harder for them to excel in advanced math.

At the other end of the battle are the folks who think students connect better if the math is placed in a context.  They advocate for teaching math with all story problems, for presenting real data rather than made up data for students to work with.

I have typically been in the first group.  I generally think that math is math, and if you can’t make students love it for itself (and not because it’s in a pretty context), then you aren’t doing your job as a math teacher.

But…then we have days like today in my class.  I was teaching percents, and as I looked over my previous lecture, I realized that the examples I used were kind of ridiculous.  They weren’t abstract but they weren’t realistic either!  The worst of both worlds.  So I searched online for “teaching percents” and “real problems using percents.”  I didn’t find much that I liked, so I brainstormed to think of where I could find real percent data.

Aha!  I went to the university’s website and found their “Fast Facts” page, pulling some percents from there (what percent of students are undergraduate, what percent are female).  Another Aha!  Our state has a nice easy flat-rate income tax, and I could think of several problems related to that.  A third Aha!  Use the hotel tax rate in Washington DC (a whopping 14 percent!), that will get their attention.

And sure enough, the students were pretty interested in these problems.  14% hotel tax drew many “Oh my gosh” and “Remind me not to go there!”  (Not my intended consequences — go to DC, it’s fabulous! — just save your pennies in advance!)   The students had a lot of good intuition about the income tax problem as well.  We also talked about percents not being additive in relation to things being on sale (like “get an additional 5 percent off” something that’s already 10 percent off is NOT the same as taking 15 percent off in total).

The advantage of using these kinds of problems seems to be that it fits with the students’ experiences and they are better able to tell whether the math is making sense.  And that’s not a bad thing.

Drama class, last day *sniffles*

Today was the last day of my drama class for this session.  With any luck, another session will start in late January, but for now, we are finished.

We finished up the session with a very dramatic, difficult play called “Ruined.”  It is set in the Congo, with a great deal of violence surrounding the main characters (reflecting real situations in that country for the last many decades).  Each of us in the class had to play several roles — one main character and then a couple of minor characters.  So I was Salima as my main role, and then also played soldiers and a diamond salesman.

We were reading along, amazed and saddened by the story, and then all of a sudden, Salima died!  My character!  Dead!  We all gasped and sat silent for a moment, hardly able to continue.

It seemed fitting, somehow, to end the session with that dramatic twist.  Through these two sessions, I’ve been a flighty Gwendolen in “The Importance of Being Earnest” and angry brother Tom in “The Glass Menegerie.”  I played the lead in “Proof” and a stiff biology professor in “Virginia Woolf.”  And now, I’ve played a character who dies surrounded by violence and fear in the Congo.

It’s been a wonderful escape to be all these characters, to explore emotions and scenarios outloud that are rarely so visible in my own life.  I have loved every minute!

Shoo Flu

It was two weeks ago today that I had the first bits of congestion that turned into flu about 24 hours later, with fever, dehydration, cough, and general malaise (such a good word).  I am mostly better, though there is a lingering cough and a sore ear that I hope go away for real soon.  People keep asking if I had Swine Flu.  My doctor thought so but didn’t run the test, so we don’t know.  There are verified cases of non-Swine Flu going around where I teach, so it could have been that.  I don’t really care which one it was.  It was flu, it was bad, and I’m glad it’s going away.  Being isolated from the world and having to decide every day whether I need medical attention feel like large burdens when you’re sick.

I was very grateful for the internet the last two weeks.  Two of my best friends were willing to chat with me online and keep me company, and it was nice to be in conversation with them in that way.  It was good to bounce around to sites, catch up on blog reading, and hang out at “GraceLook.”

I was also grateful for the distraction provided by DVDs.  I had received the second season of “Punky Brewster” on DVD for my birthday (re-capturing my childhood — it’s such a good, clean show!).  I watched almost the entire DVD set in one day!  I also got Disney’s “earth” documentary from the library.

And I’m most grateful that “this too shall pass,” that our bodies can overcome viruses and that health returns.