Just for Kicks

This one cracked me up. I think you should see how it runs first. No point in taking it all apart if it operates smoothly.

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here

Last night, the school had a Christmas program. Yes, one of those things where the children dress up in green and red and Santa hats and reindeer headbands and sing Christmas songs and tell the Christmas story approximately 8 different ways. Very cliche and cute and enjoyable to all the parents and kids. I apparently had a vital and superfluous role that two other people plus 8 teachers filled, so I spent most of the time trying to figure out if I needed to do my job or not.

It was the first time I had really been around children and parents at the same time. I've heard talk about some parents, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it slanted neither way. At the program, however, all the parents smiled and clapped and politely asked us silly white people to move out of the way so they could see their children. I remembered way back when I was in school, being at events like that and how I never knew quite how to interact with my teachers outside of school. Being on the other side, I was happy with a simply "hi."

Connections

I am currently reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry with the 6th grade. I have the upper level reading group, a fun group of kids. They read well enough to understand the story, and they think well enough to discuss it. For example, today the black father of the main characters told them they should not be friends with the white boy who likes them. We had a long discussion about whether they should or should not be friends with him (it might be dangerous, because white men might not like it), if the father was racist (probably, but also wise), and if things would be different today (yes).

The story centers around themes of race, family, and integrity, so that provides a lot of good discussion material. We also delve into elements of literature. I'm not sure if they don't get it in reading class, or they just don't remember, but I've taught them theme, similes, and metaphors.

The best part comes from the teachable moments. We have impromptu lessons about the Civil War and civil rights movement, about values and morality, about friendship and finances. My favorite moment, however, happened after the play, outside the Fox. We were waiting for the bus to pick us up and watching buses full of students pass us. I asked a couple of my kids if it reminded them of anything. And they remembered the scenes of the bus of white kids passing the main characters on their walk to school! As well as the subsequent prank the black kids played afterwards. Which apparently was the moral of that story.

8th Grade Maths

The title is in honour of a British friend, who pointed out that as teaching philosophy is developed, these newfangled math teachers are more concerned with students understanding why something is true than that something is true. Which I think is what the 8th grade math teacher was going for. Every student in that room understood why

x+3=6 can become x=6-3

Students in the lower level math class sometimes still write it out

x+3+(-3)=6+(-3)

to understand the process. Interestingly, I intuited that my method worked, but as soon as an 8th grader hollered out a different answer, I started second-guessing myself and had to logic through the why of my method.

Nostalgia in Harmony

Our community time for the past 2 nights has taken 2 hours longer than normal, informally, as we sit together to watch The Sing-Off. The show hosts an a capella competition, whittling down to a winner from 8 starting groups. It's fun on our quirky TV. If you walk across the room, receive a text, refresh a Facebook page, or stretch your legs, the sound stutters like a broken record and the visual pixelates.

On our side of the screen, I get to watch 4 girls (self included) swoon over male groups and cheer for the female and co-ed groups. And it takes me back to college, where we have more a capella groups than started on the show. Hands down, a college group called the Beelzebubs takes on the role of the Gentlemen of the College, and I am finding that the swooning is less annoying when television glass and several thousand miles separate them from us. But mostly, it makes me homesick for Wren 10s and Yule Log and the Gala and my EWC team (I can't link a seranade) and beginnings and endings at W&M.

I also have confirmed the fact that I actually like a capella better than music with a band, and it's not just the fact that it's a "cool" college thing. And my barbershop love isn't just because I knew someone who sang it. I'm not sure what it is about only having human voices, but it enchants me. Even "Stayin' Alive," sung in falsetto by a group of Latino men.

8th Grade Math

Friday, I helped out with the advanced 8th grade math class. It brought me straight back to middle school. However, I also realized that my brain works differently from these students. Maybe a great portion of humanity. They did mental math. For example:

x+3=9

Of course, x=6. We also had

8+x=4

x=-4, obviously. But the math teacher asked about how they got the answer. Apparently, most people moved the constant to combine like terms. That is, they rewrote the problem mentally to read

x=9-3=6

x=4-8=-4

On the other hand, I did no math. I simply asked myself, "What do I need with 3 to make 9?" Or "with 8 to make 4?" A subtle difference, but I realized I was in no way doing mental math. It got more obvious with a more difficult problem:

12+x=2x+8-3

The class all matched up terms in their heads:

12+x=2x+5

12-5=2x-x

7=x

Easy as pie, but not what happened in my brain. I didn't combine like terms. I cancelled. Before even combining 8 and 3, I balanced out 12 and 8. Now my problem read

4+x=2x-3

Except, at the same time, I did the same thing for the x terms:

4 = x-3

And them you have x=7. The process happened quickly, so did not cost me time. It was simply completely different from what was happening in the brains of other people in the room. I'm curious to know if this is because they are 8th graders, because of the fact that they have all been taught the same way, or because my mind is a strange place to me.