Daily Archives: September 3, 2008

Well, after yesterday’s histrionics, I can say that the first day passed by without a single “oh my gosh” incident.

Homeroom went well, as did my two calculus classes. (Although one is disproportionately larger than the other. Don’t yell at me, public school teachers, when I reveal the numbers and your brain’s penchant for witty sarcasm goes into overdrive for my kvetching: 15 students in one and 4 in the other. And no, that isn’t a typo and there is no missing digit.) Wednesday is very light on actual class time. 

I also did both of my “duties” for the week (proctoring study hall, which no one attended because it was the first day, and sitting at the front desk in case students want to sign out for lunch). I led my homeroom in a discussion of the summer reading, whose theme was “banned books.” (The question I posed: come up with a book you think should be banned at our school.) I made my photocopies and got the printer to work half the time. (More than yesterday’s 20% success rate.) And I even had time to submit my summer curriculum grant form, so I get a little extra scrilla for all the work I did over the summer. 

Tomorrow will be the real test, because I teach all four of my classes. And have a bunch of meetings.

The plan

Calculus: Continue reviewing functions, go into detail about domain and range, talk about course expectations in detail.
Multivariable Calculus: Go over course expectations in detail, start teaching about graphing simple equations in three dimensions.
Algebra II: Introductions, start on the basics of sets (element, subset, union, intersection) 

With that, I’m out.

dy/dan has done something spectacular: 

posted every single one of his geometry keynote presentations for the year. 

I don’t teach geometry (and I’m glad because I never really liked it), but now I kind of wish I did have a section.

I’m inspired enough to say that one of my goals for the year is to do the same for my SmartBoard lessons with either Algebra II or Calculus. There aren’t a lot of Smartboards out there. Nor good sites for resources. But looking at this project from a microlevel, instead of the macrolevel, it isn’t so daunting. Maybe I’ll try to post my SmartBoard lessons each week somewhere.

Preface: Classes start tomorrow.

Things that went wrong today, while attempting to get organized and do some prep work.

(1) The printer in the math office at school decides it doesn’t want to work, so I can’t print stuff out at school. This is the number one worst thing ever for the day before classes start. Period.

(2) My printer at home is broken. Tonight I tried to fix it. I was unsuccessful. As a permanent reminder of this mechanical failure, I have ink all over my bedsheet.

(3) I was suffering from heat exhaustion at the end of the day. There isn’t any AC in our office, and with all the teachers there, working with a flurry of activity, I started to have hot flashes. Whoever said you have to be a woman to be afflicted is a crackpot.

(4) [In my school (as is usual in independent schools) students purchase their own textbooks. None of my multivariable calculus students seem to have a textbook. In theory, they should be able to use their calculus books from last year, since the multivariable sections are the last 5 chapters. However, apparently, the calculus teacher last year (he retired at the end of last year), told his students they didn’t need to buy a book. How he taught the class, I don’t know, but the consequence is: I’m screwed. 

(5) As a consequence of this book disaster, an hour ago I decide to check to see if the book order for my regular calculus class went in the system — so students know which is the right book to order. Apparently the course is listed as “Calculus AB BC.” This is NOT an AP course. Luckily they have the right course number listed, along with my name. So there’s a chance students got the book.

What’s unfortunate was that I wasn’t nervous or anxious or anything about going back to school last month, last week, even yesterday. But now that all this has happened, I am having a mini-freak out. Sigh.