I Hate You Too

You know, being a teacher sucks sometimes (most-times), I'll spend many hours preparing and thinking of ways to explain things I've known for practically centuries in ways that a layman can understand, sometimes I fail at this, sometimes I don't. Hell I'll be the first to say I'm not the best teacher in the world, I'm certainly not. Lord knows I shouldn't ever be allowed in a college algebra course ever again (or anything lower for that matter), but contrarily I think I really do shine when the material gets tougher. Anyway, regardless of my own pros and cons it really ticks me the fuck off when after all this work I look out and see this:

Why I Hate Teaching

This right here, I got this email yesterday:

Subject: MATH 210

I'm in your MWF 10-10:50 class.  Is our test Monday or Wednesday?
Thanks,
M** W****

Hmm, I've only wrote that on the board for the past three weeks that the next test will be Monday March 29th, the Monday before Spring Break. I'm not sure I could be any clearer for any longer. So either this is the guy from "Memento" attending my class or he hasn't shown up since Test 2. And you know what really fries my bacon? I'll have to grade this joker's test. I fucking hate teaching sometimes, college students can be such worthless little shits.

P.S. Those of you waiting for the last part of Numbers, it's coming soon. As you know, the weeks leading up to Spring Break are brutal, but over the break I should be able to catch up some, and maybe not take a week between each part. But I also have a paper to submit at the end of April, so there's no telling what's going to happen.

Just Cowboy Up Already

It's the beginning of the semester, still officially the first week since we only had half a week last week and this monday off. It's this first week or so that all my pet peeves of teaching come roaring in. Eventually it tapers off and I get into the swing of things, but the first few days I'm continuously reminded of all the little things I hate about teaching. There's a particular phenominon I hate more than anything. This semester my classes started with 35 seats (all full), which isn't that bad, but the limit has since been raised to 39 to accomodate student demand. Still this is nothing to get all riled up about, and compared to the fall, where classes can start at 45 (fuck my life) seats, this is still managable. That is until I wander online and see:

Riddle Me This Class

Well, guess who's back? Yes, it's me, your favorite genius, and I finally have time to sit down and do this again. So what's new? I passed my oral exam, it was brutal to say the least, basically the longest hour and a half of my life, but now it's over and I wont ever have to take another test for as long as I live; and that, gentle reader, is the best feeling in the world. After the oral I basically had the weekend and I was off to TN for thanksgiving with the family, which was oh so wonderful as usual. Then it was back to the grindstone on Monday, so yeah I've been busy. But I'm back, and I have some fun problems and rants stewing in the ole brain box to share with you, though they'll have to wait for another time. I'm basically just here to let you know I'm not dead, or crushed under the stress of grad school, or any other scenario you might have been concerned about. I'm alive and well and will soon be back with a vengeance.

I Don't Do Sympathy

 

What's the deal with fractions? Say it like Seinfeld and it's kind of funny. Say it exasperated while shaking your head, as I usually do after class, and it's not really funny at all. Really? What's the deal with fractions? It's one of the things I'll never understand as a teacher. Let me explain, I've broken down things students do into two categories: things I understand and things I'll never understand. As you can probably expect, that first category grows ever smaller while the second increases without bound. Don't misunderstand me though, I'm not completely unreasonable, there's plenty in that first column. For example, I can totally understand why a student would have trouble with logarithms the first time they see them; after all they require a complete backwards thinking that we haven't quite felt since learning that division was the opposite of multiplication (which by the time you hit logs was a long long time before). There are plenty more, keeping integration rules straight, dealing with Z mod 2 the first time and learning that 1+1=0 there and so on. Though as time goes on I start to wonder if I'll ever be able to stop adding things to this second category. Things I'll never understand include: How can a student solve an equation with xs but give them the same equation with zs then they're lost? Why does a student, who made it all the way to calculus, need their calculator to find 5-0? And of course, fractions, fractions blow minds, and I'll never understand why.