this is the coolest comment thread
i’ve found in ages and i’m only halfway through.
thought i’d get my resolutions down so i could
listen to the other peoples comments better
(it helps to quiet the chattering in my head sometimes
if i get something done… usually this fails like
everything else though…); i’ll be back i bet.

i’m probably not teaching anything this fall
as you might have guessed.

The teacher Ms. Lubarski, unknown to her, made me very comfortable. As she was explaining to the parents how she conducts her class; she pointed out some 24 small tubes with names along the wall. She said that the students will be taught how to give warm fuzzies to each other during the year. And all parents were required to write a warm fuzzy for their kid and leave it in the tube for them to get first thing in the morning. We learned how to put warm fuzzies in kids lunch box! They were absolutely morale boosters for young kids.

There was another teacher Ms. Chihorz in 5th grade who gave an interesting warm fuzzy to my son. When I went for his Parent Teacher Conference she told me that my son had A in everything but he was missing by a point in Math. The she added that she decided to give him an A regardless.

When I came home and showed the grades to my son he said, “Dad, I promise that now I will always have an A grade.” True to his own internal promise by this unknown warm fuzzy he went on to to MIT and UCLA and became a Math teacher!

Same Ms. Lubarski told my wife (who was concerned about her son) at another Parent Teacher Conference, “Do not compare your son to your daughter. God made all flowers. And ALL flowers bloom, but at their own time. Your son will also bloom and he will bloom better than your daughter.” and she was absolutely right, he bloomed and bloomed better than my daughter and both are still blooming!

Go ahead and give warm fuzzies as random act of kindness and give an A if the kid is missing it only by a point or so – it will do a whole lot better in creating a new, better person!

Students will often ask if I wrote something on purpose and sometimes I did and they didn’t see the reasoning, but sometimes I did make a mistake. Giving a reward for the students being right may help encourage an environment where they will be more willing to ask questions about things they don’t quite understand…who knows, maybe they get a treat for it.

I’ve been exploring Scott’s list. It’s pretty good. I posted about that, and fixed my blog to show the math blogs I follow. Resolutions, huh?

1. Maybe I should resolve to review my preps for the day before I start reading my blogroll! ;^)
2. I’m not teaching at the college this year (sabbatical!), but I am teachign at my son’s school. We don’t do grades, but I want to keep the kids’ work in well-organized files to show their parents, and…
3. I want to observe the kids more carefully.

Ok. I printed this, and I’m also going to put it on my (computer) desktop. No way I’d remember if I don’t remind myself.

Thanks, Sam!