Thelnie Blogs » teaching

Woo, I’m safe

Thelnie — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:06:24 +0000

It took me about 75 bucks for the Department of Justice and the FBI to confirm that I’m totally safe to work with kids. I’m glad they didn’t decide I was crazy, which I am.

Phewf!

Here kiddie kiddies!

Also, I got into Cal State Long Beach for the credential program. Yay, at least I have somewhere to go now. Half the weight on my shoulders gone.

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Holiday Teacher Perks

Thelnie — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:42:50 +0000

Last year, I made reindeer candy canes for a lot of my students because I had like…three classes on the last Friday. This year, I only had one class.

This year, I made little snowflake candy…thingies. I really wanted to do something but didn’t have a clue what to do until the last minute. I made 30 of these in 30 minutes.

Tropical Soda Candy. The kids always love them because it’s different from the candy you buy at the regular store.

This is the best card I’ve received. She spent a lot of time on it and you can tell.

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WoW is everywhere

Thelnie — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:12:47 +0000

Today I wore my BlizzCon08 shirt to work today, over a long sleeved shirt. I got through the first class without incident, and I went up to the teacher and he said

Mr. S: By the way, Mrs. M (the other teacher I work under), her husband plays that game. He gets together with friends and they like…play. WoW right?

Me: Oh! Yeah. Does she play too?

Mr. S: Nooooo noooo…she…..she hates it. It’s the bane of her existence.

Me: Ooooh haha…I know how she feels…

Later on, in the second class, this kid goes

Kid: OMG you went to BlizzCon too?! What, what do you have?

Me: oh….. a priest…

Kid: I’m Undead Warlock! Dude! She plays WoW!

Other kid: What?

Then, I went to Mrs. M’s class

Mrs. M: Do you play World of Warcraft?……

Me: Yes…

Mrs. M: I’m a WoW widow…….okay???? It’s…..it’s just….wow. I catch him sneaking around to play that game…he gets together with his friends, because they work at Blizzard…

Me: >_<

Girl: ooh my brother plays too, he used to play Everquest also…

I think if you got all the WoW players together, they would be a small country…like Sweden or something. That might have changed since last year by now though. A little bigger. Soon, nobody will do anything but play in the alternate reality of WoW. Raiding is a full-time job and we’ll be fed by tubes in our chairs. And conflicts between countries will be resolved by 5-man arenas.

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Mad about math

Thelnie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:28:44 +0000

So I’m walking around in one of my classrooms, and this girl is doing binomials.

(x^2 – 2x – 15)

Okay, so we know the answer is (x+3) (x-5), but this girl had the signs mixed up for many of her answers, and she was rewriting them on her homework. Plus for minus, and minus for plus. So I’m looking over her shoulder, and I ask

Me: Hey, so what’s going on here?

Girl: Ooh I just got these signs wrong, I mixed it up.

Me: …so…what happened, do you understand it now?

Girl: oh, yeah, if they are both negative in the question, then the answer will have a negative and positive, I forgot and made them both negative…

Me: …..(wth…)…so wait, you’re just looking at the signs to determine what the signs in the answer will be?

Girl: Well, yeah, that’s what our teacher told us…

Me: (….what kind of lame cheap shortcut is this teacher teaching?) So, you understand that you have to find two numbers that multiply to the 3rd number, but add up to the 2nd number right? -5 and +3 multiply to -15 but add up to -2, that’s why you use those signs, not because of just memorizing how they should be. You should know why they are like that…

Girl: …….mm..yeah…

Me: You can also check your work by foiling again to make sure you get the right numbers too…then you’ll know for sure you have the right signs…

Girl:…well..yeah..i mean…but our teacher told us we could just do it like this…

And that, my friends, is why I get depressed working at schools sometimes. But! I’m glad I got to snap some of these kids out of it. You know some kids aren’t even writing their math homework correctly, working horizontally instead of vertically? With lines written haphazardly in different areas of the paper? It kills me when I see it and it makes it hard for me and the student to follow. Did no one teach them an organized and logical way to do their math? Grrrrrrr…I’m dedicating a lesson to how to write in good math format when I’m a teacher.

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And then?

Thelnie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:45:47 +0000

So I was walking around tutoring again, and I pass by this kid I’ve known since last year, who likes to talk to me sometimes, or hail me down for a question that he might not actually need the answer to.

Kid: Want to hear a joke?

Me: Sure!

Kid: (to Kid 2 across the table) Hey I’m going to tell her that joke…about the…

Kid 2: Nono…don’t! don’t……don’t!

Kid: (shaking head) no, I’m gonna do it.

Me:

Kid: So, there is a farmer and he has a donkey, and he wants to make his donkey laugh but he can’t. So he tells the village that he’ll pay 600 gold to anyone who can get him to laugh, and everyone fails, except for one guy, and he gets the donkey to laugh. But then the donkey can’t stop laughing and the farmer tries to get him to stop but he can’t. So he tells the village he’ll give anything 600g who can get the donkey to stop laughing, and everyone fails, except for the guy who got the donkey to laugh in the first place. So the farmer asks the guy how he did it, and

Kid 2: Noooo no…don’t do it….

Kid: I…..I can’t…..I can’t…..No, nevermind…I can’t say it….

Me: …..@_@……(and?!?!)

Sigh…I really am in this position right? Try to connect with kids but still am apart.

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i lose myself sometimes

Thelnie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:20:04 +0000

In a 9th grade class, I notice one girl has a big book for Bronte books.

Me: Hey, what is that book?

Girl: Oh, I’m reading it for silent reading time.

Me: man…it’s huge!…….That’s what shhh….

Boy: (that I’ve taught since his 8th grade last year): That’s what SHE said…!

Me: @_@….

I need to be a lot more careful. I don’t know what got into me.

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no thanks

Thelnie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:43:26 +0000

At a middle school today:

Boy: Hey, smell my cheek

Me: …@_@…uh…no thanks!

Boy: Just smell my cheek! It smells like cologne!

Me: ^_^…

To be fair, another boy had been spraying cologne, and this boy must have gotten some on his finger…and then smeared it on his face…and he might have been honestly wanting me to smell his cheek.

Still, I’m gullible, but I wasn’t falling for any of this. After my experience with “Let me tell you a secret”, I’ve become wary of things like these. All I need is his head to turn at the last moment. @_@. No thanks!

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Warmness

Thelnie — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:32:09 +0000

I’ve been getting little gifts and cards from classes of students…it’s really nice and thoughtful. The best is all the cards they write. It’s a little sad, though, because of my new quarter class schedule, I won’t be able to teach a few of the schools and some of the kids in there are my favorite. For instance, the CSI Miami girl.

So some of the cards say that I’ve raised their Math grade from Cs to Bs…which are really nice. I’m not sure if it’s true……but if it is, that’s pretty awesome that I only have to help them with two problems a day, and they learn from other kid’s questions, and that can make a big difference. Sometimes, I’ll review them core concepts that trick people even now. Such as:

X^5 * X^8 is not the same as (X^5)^8. The first one is actually X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X and the second one is X^5 times itself eight times….so you add the exponents on the first one, but you multiply the exponents on the second one. Breaking down the reasoning behind the shortcuts is what I usually do to get kids to understand stuff like this. And this is stuff people forget even in AP Calc….well they don’t forget, but they have to think about it for a second.

Anyhow, I was talking to CSI girl, and I told her that I wouldn’t be coming on Thursdays anymore and she seemed kind of bummed….and I was thumbing through all the holiday cards they wrote…and she said:

“It’s weird…most kids drew holiday christmas stuff…but….. I drew flames ”

hahahhaa…..

Did I tell you she came in with these scabbed up circled scars on her hand, the size of dimes…and when her friend asked her how it happened…she casually said,

“Oh, I was working on my dirtbike this morning, and the battery acid dripped on my hand. It kind of stings, but it’s okay”

<: D

My kind of girl!

Oh wait, I was talking about holiday stuff, but I went on a tangent. Anyhow, it’s all very touching and I enjoy it lots. Even for the problem kids that are a little hard to get to concentrate, I can totally see that they are all good kids inside and just need a little push and encouragement. I love seeing the progression of a kid who didn’t really try, but after I write a few words of encouragement on their paper, their next paper becomes a huge improvement.

And the best kids are the ones who try the work, and actually ASK questions.

and P.S. I saw about three “Your the best”. @_____________@. I’m going to have to get on that quickly. And sometimes, I type that wrong too, but it’s because sometimes my fingers type things I don’t mean to type…like they have a mind of their own. Does anyone else get that?

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Asian Magnetism

Thelnie — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:30:20 +0000

So I’m at a middle school, and there is a break before the class starts, so I bust out my strawberry yogurt nutrigrain bar and head outside to eat it on the ramp (it’s a portable classroom). A few seconds into chomping down on it, greeting students coming in, I sudden notice a little asian kid looking at me.

Asian kid: Hi!

Me: Hi!

Asian kid: What are….

Me: Oh! I’m part of this class. ……… Are you in this class? (thinking he just added the class or something)

Asian kid: oh! no…no….

Me: Okay!….

Asian kid: Are you….Japanese…..Chinese…..

Me: I’m actually Taiwanese…..yup…mmhm….

Asian kid: ooooh okay….so do you speak Chinese?

Me: Yeah, I can speak Manderin. ^_^.

Asian kid: Ni tsai tse su muh? (What are you eating?)

Me: Oh, a bar.

Asian kid: Ahh! So you cannot speak Chinese!

Me: No no, I can

Asian kid: Then why don’t you speak it? Is your Chinese poor?

Me: No, I just choose not to.

Asian Kid: Why?

Me: It’s…..just…..weird….here….

Asian Kid: Ahhhhh! <shaking his head, as if offended, and walks away in a huff>

Me:

Too funny. I hope he’s okay.

But seriously, what is up with that? It’s like he was walking to class, and suddenly sees an asian person and he just had to see if it was someone he could speak Chinese to? It was really uncomfortable. You’re a kid! Go make friends!

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Back to Work

Thelnie — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:15:26 +0000

After taking a nice week off from work (working at schools is great like that), I came back to see many boys with their hair freshly cut! It was almost alarming, because I had never thought about guys getting their hair cut, but I guess during the holiday is when they have time to get their hair cut.

There is one class in particular that gets me depressed. There are some kids that just don’t care to be in the AVID class. AVID is an elective class, similar to drama, choir, orchestra…and some kids just don’t want to be there so they don’t do the work even when they are already in class. In that case, I would just let the kid go to do what he wants. He’s not getting anything from being in our class and he generally has a bad attitude about it and it’s starting to affect the other kids. That stuff gets me depressed. Kids that give up easily…and then make a big deal about it.

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