T-minus weekend and counting

Monday looms on the horizon like my 14-year-old cat on the edge of the bed and my reaction to the former is very similar to my reaction to the latter: if I just roll over and act like I'm asleep, it won't poke me in the face with its paw.

Alas, there is no way I can avoid either the campus or the cat. Classes start Monday and I am oh-so-very behind in my prep. I am further behind, I think, than I was three years ago when I was new at this gig. Sheesh. It's not like the math has changed any since I taught it 12 weeks ago, especially not in Intermediate Algebra. Regardless of the time-crunch I have brought upon myself, I am looking forward to the quarter, even the part where I play the role of honest-but-brutal teacher when I tell Annie Student that, yes, even though we are all individuals, your particular method of manipulating symbols on the page won't solve the equation. Ever.

How do I convince my students that the textbook is nothing more than a collection of methods that work and it's not such a bad place to start? The techniques in the book work now, they worked yesterday and they will work tomorrow. Granted, an alternative method may not be incorrect but we need to start at a common point and I elect to use this book as the starting place. I swear sometimes I think I am the first person to ever dare say No to some students when I deny points, praise, or pleasantries. As of Monday at 8 a.m., I am going to start a counter to track how long it is before a student asks, Well, why can't I do it this way? Inside my head, the mini-math-prof will stomp her foot and scream Can we put off exploring your ideas under after you solve two consecutive problems correctly?!?

Yes, there is value in seeing the problem a different way than the text shows, perhaps, but algebra is a set of rules and there are only so many ways those rules can be interpreted. Most of my energy will be spent convincing a handful of people that we do not have the time to explore n different wrong ways of trying to find x.

The part I enjoy most is looking for new problems to assign as homework exercises. I'm going to go do that now and put off fine-tuning the syllabi for a little while longer.


+-+-+-+-+
USBCell - given that we can now plug in fans, lights, and missile launchers into a USB port, what took so long for someone to come up with rechargeable AA batteries?

Hardwood floor via puzzle pieces - do you start with the corner pieces?