Amok Time

Today's Lesson Menu

3rd and 4th Period (Test)

6th, 7th, 8th...comparing relative error to percent change.

OK, so it's generally accepted within the math faculty that teaching any sort of lesson the week before Christmas is an utter fool's errand, but surprisingly enough, I've found the kids fairly receptive to some honest-to-goodness lecture-type instruction. We'll see how long it lasts. One thing that makes teaching more frustrating than you initially anticipated is how quickly the kids adapt and overcome your latest winning classroom management tactic.

In other words, a guy can only go to the well so many times before he gets the bucket dumped back on his head. With tomorrow being a short day, I have an automatic excuse (if not incentive) to shift course. And yet things went so well that I'm tempted to spend the whole period tomorrow finishing up the worksheet I handed out with only 10 minutes to spare today.

Decisions, decisions. I'll have to use this space to report back the outcome.

Anyway, part of what made the day easier than expected is that I had the freshmen pinned down with a test. At least, that's the way each class started. Test days have been crazier than normal days in my fourth period class, and today continued the trend. I don't know if it's test-phobia or if I'm just making the tests too inaccessible. Whatever it is, I doubt I had more than 40 percent of the room taking the test seriously. When it gets to be like that, I find myself all but sitting down alongside the worst students and helping them solve the problems step by step.

If the preceding sentence makes the reader gasp, perhaps I need to get my philosophy out front and center: I'm not opposed to any sort of intervention that helps a kid learn; sometimes test day is the only time you're guaranteed any level of meaningful attention from a kid. My only real concern is that, once I start talking to one kid other kids start begging for help, which I feel it's only fair to offer. Either that, or the kids suddenly feel authorized to talk among themselves, which, again, I don't mind so much except for the fact that it raises the noise level of the room to the point that you've got a handout exercise instead of a test.

Which is kind of the point of here...When you get below a certain learning level the whole notion of a pen and paper test serving as a meaningful form of assessment becomes yet another one of those little lies that makes educational system feel hollow to the core.

Rather than confirm a kid's overall weakness in math, I'd prefer to be like the weightlifting partner, slipping two fingers under the bar to make sure the kid pulls off at least one decent bench press. At the very least, I'll know that the answer on the page came from working with me, as opposed to copying the next kid's (equally incorrect) answer.