4.5 Days Left ....

Less than a week away!

Today I gave my last quiz to my students. I always let them work with a partner on the quiz given the day before the Test. This quiz is basically a review for the Test ... but they wouldn't do it if I didn't count it as a grade ...

Anyway .... I love sitting there listening to them discussing the problems with each other. There is usually one partner who is good at the stuff and one who needs help .... or they balance each other. They talk MATH ... they argue about who is right and why ... or one will explain to the other how to do this problem or that problem. I just love listening to their discussions!

Sometimes I'll hear a student explaining things so WELL to someone else ... and I want to suggest to that student that they might consider becoming a teacher .... they have a natural ability. But I just can't recommend this career choice to them.

Why spend 4-5 years majoring in Mathematics just to get out and earn less than $40,000/yr with horrible benefits?? I mean, a degree in Math can earn you big bucks! Why teach? Not to mention all the garbage that teachers have to deal with both in and out of the classroom!!

Yet .... maybe some of these students will become teachers. Teaching is a calling ... and some of these kids have a natural ability that just might not be denied.

I, personally, never intended to become a teacher. Yet while in college I found myself tutoring other students and liking the fact that they could learn from me. Then in Grad school at Texas A&M, I was a teaching assistant (TA) for Calculus I classes .... the professor taught the huge class on Mondays and Wednesdays and I retaught the lesson to smaller groups of the same students on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I was pretty good at it. But I noticed that it wasn't the Calculus that the students couldn't do .... it was their stupid Algebra mistakes that were causing them problems .... so I decided to get into High Schools and fix those Algebra classes!

Yeah, right .... like I had any power over that.

And Algebra I is just getting worse and worse and worse because the course is being driven by the TAKS test instead of the TAKS test being based on the course. And I haven't done a single bit of good .... except maybe try to fix the kids who pass through my classroom. Maybe.

Anyway ... teaching is definitely my calling. I am leaving the classroom ... but I will continue to teach!