New Math

[DudeAsInCool]

Apparently this student was upset at the calibre of his math teacher. I think she sounds like a hoot and would have been glad to have her

Things My Math Teacher Did Last Year:

1. Forgot how to find the slope of a line.

2. Tried to express the difference between ( 2 Sin x) and ( 5 Sin x) by yelling out what they would sound like if you turned them into sounds.

3. Pointed the overhead projector out the window instead of at the screen.

4. Taught us the difference between vertical and horizontal.

5. Took a little bit too long to reduce 36/108 to 4/12, and just as long to reduce that to 1/3.

6. Made sure that we were fully aware that Moses descended from the mountains with the Ten Commandments and not with the knowledge of how to determine square roots.

7. Brought a rope to class and tried to hold it up to demonstrate different graphs rather then drawing them on the board. Complications arose when she realized that she only had two hands.

8. When a student asked, "Can I ask you a question?" she cleverly replied, "You just did!" Needless to say, no one thought that was very funny.

9. Taught us that a good way to remember what an exponent is is to remember that is has the letter "x" in it. That was the only explanation she gave.

10. Told us that she offers extra credit points for every time you tell her about an "interesting" mistake you made on your homework. She also grants extra credit for not knowing how to do a problem and asking her how to do it. Since these assignments are not turned in, you are rewarded absolutely no points for knowing how to do all the problems and doing them all correctly.

11. This extra credit is added up when, at the end of class, she passes around a piece of paper and you write down your name and how many extra credit points you earned that day.

12. One assignment each week is actually handed in for credit. I answered three out of the five problems incorrect but still managed to receive 9.5 points out of a possible 10.

13. She explained 1-dimensional, 2-dimensional, and 3-dimensional objects. She then portrayed what a 2 1/2-dimensional object was by violently wadding up a piece of paper into a ball and holding it out to us. She later realized that she needed that piece of paper to make copies of the homework assignment for the class.

14. The only reason she was talking about 2 1/2-dimensional objects in the first place was because she thought 1 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 2 1/2.

15. Told us that as the year went on, we'd be learning more things about math.

16. After she illustrated the difference between f(x) = sin x and f(x) = x^2, she advised us to just sit back for a minute and take it all in. So we did.

17. Admitted that half the math problems out there are just impossible.

18. Since homework is due not at class time but at midnight, there is good reason to believe that she lives in her office.

19. Admitted that she doesn't have enough brain cells to know what pi is.

20. Used her superior math skills to estimate that the answer to one problem was somewhere in between 100 and 1,000.

21. Advised us to never ever graph (-3)^x because the result would be way too weird for us to handle.

22. Had the ingenious idea to combine math and gym class, which she demonstrated by moving her arms around frantically so that they looked like certain graphs. No one else did it.

23. The number 3 reminds her of an accordion.

24. Said that math is an escape from the real world and those who do math cannot deal with reality.

25. One of the problems on a past assignment asked us to write an equation that when graphed, would show the emotional ups and downs of a friend.

26. Said that she might have invented the distributive property, but she wasn't really sure.

27. Some students lost points on their homework assignment for using logarithms to solve certain problems because she had not taught us that method yet. Other methods, such as guessing, were accepted.

28. Taught us various ways to use our calculators to cheat on the test.

29. Determined that 2000/400 was "probably" 5.

30. A student raised their hand in class and the teacher called on her by saying, "I have no idea why, but I am so determined to call you Sarah right now." The student responded by saying, "Probably because that's my name."

31. Admitted that she spent a lot of her childhood hanging on to an electric fence for as long as she could.

32. When the word asymptote comes up, she is the one who is quick to point out that it starts with "ass".

33. Asked us, "What's the graph look like for this equation?" When no one said anything, she just started dancing around for some reason.

34. She showed up for class one day and the lights were off. She said, "No wonder you guys are always in the dark." I knew it was going to be a bad day.

35. Said that if we didn't like the grade we got on the test, we could just make our own test and do that one instead.

36. Informed us that while driving, we'd still have to depress the accelerator if we wanted to keep moving at a uniform speed. Apparently it isn't just for accelerating.

37. Has the amazing ability to somehow associate any math problem with the time she went to Australia.

38. Direct Quote: "The facts of life is this is a parabola." I have no idea what she could have possibly meant by that.

39. Showed her mastery of the English language by successfully using the word "maximumly" in a sentence.

40. Told us that it's possible for a math problem to be its own grandma.

41. Asked us if we were surprised when 1/2 X 40 ended up being 20.

42. A student messed up on a problem and told the teacher what she had done. The teacher got all excited and said, "Oh, I like that!"

43. Said that Tuesday seemed like a "bizillion" years ago.

44. Told us that although we understood the problem, we'd probably get all confused again once we were further away from her aura.

45. Said that doing integrals is like driving with a clutch; in that you don't know how it works but you do it anyways.

46. She's a retired high school math teacher.

47. When one student raised both their arms above their head to stretch, she asked the student if he had two questions.

http://www.willamette.edu/~jtdavis/teacher/teacher.html

[DudeAsInCool]

10. Told us that she offers extra credit points for every time you tell her about an "interesting" mistake you made on your homework. She also grants extra credit for not knowing how to do a problem and asking her how to do it. Since these assignments are not turned in, you are rewarded absolutely no points for knowing how to do all the problems and doing them all correctly.

:good job:

[Umma]

Sounds like my kinda teacher...

[ASUmusicMAN]

Thats horrible...especially the why we do integrals one...boo to that teacher

[nate]

Thats horrible...especially the why we do integrals one...boo to that teacher

boo to the "student"

if they are so damned smart, let them teach the class

maybe mr. smarty pants didn't like it, but the rest of the class did

teachers are human beings and do , on occasion, make mistakes--why didn't mr. smartypants bring these things to the teacher's attention immediately, instead of posting them like a coward to a website? oh yeah they are a gutless smartypants bastard

grrrrrrrr

[ASUmusicMAN]

or maybe it's cause HS math teachers aren't required to have taken calculus yet teach it...

shit like "12. One assignment each week is actually handed in for credit. I answered three out of the five problems incorrect but still managed to receive 9.5 points out of a possible 10."

and "10. Told us that she offers extra credit points for every time you tell her about an "interesting" mistake you made on your homework. She also grants extra credit for not knowing how to do a problem and asking her how to do it. Since these assignments are not turned in, you are rewarded absolutely no points for knowing how to do all the problems and doing them all correctly."

cannot be blamed on being human...just on being stupid.

and "1. Forgot how to find the slope of a line." should seriously be scary. If I forget how to take vital signs at my job I know i'd get canned, regardless if i'm human or not. What are you going to tell your teacher "excuse mr. dumbass, but that's not how I learned to take a slope when my sixth grade teacher taught it to me..."

i've tried stuff like that and I got a nice letter from the principal saying respect the teacher...I only respect when they earn it, and most certainly if any math teacher can't find a slope all respect and credibility will be out the window

[nate]

or maybe it's cause HS math teachers aren't required to have taken calculus yet teach it...

shit like "12. One assignment each week is actually handed in for credit. I answered three out of the five problems incorrect but still managed to receive 9.5 points out of a possible 10."

and "10. Told us that she offers extra credit points for every time you tell her about an "interesting" mistake you made on your homework. She also grants extra credit for not knowing how to do a problem and asking her how to do it. Since these assignments are not turned in, you are rewarded absolutely no points for knowing how to do all the problems and doing them all correctly."

cannot be blamed on being human...just on being stupid.

and "1. Forgot how to find the slope of a line." should seriously be scary. If I forget how to take vital signs at my job I know i'd get canned, regardless if i'm human or not. What are you going to tell your teacher "excuse mr. dumbass, but that's not how I learned to take a slope when my sixth grade teacher taught it to me..."

i've tried stuff like that and I got a nice letter from the principal saying respect the teacher...I only respect when they earn it, and most certainly if any math teacher can't find a slope all respect and credibility will be out the window

did you look at the rest of his site?

he's just some prick who thinks the world owes him something, or at the very least, completely revolves around him

maybe math is easy for him--that's great, but it isn't necessarily the case for everyone else in his class. extra credit should go to people who make interesting mistakes, since they are the ones who need it. this is the teacher's way of trying to find students who need help, then giving them help. would you rather she did nothing and failed everyone?

to be honest, most of the stuff there looks like it was the teacher making jokes that he didn't like, or just didn't get, or him dramatizing little quirks of the teacher. you never forgot how to do something momentarily? or forgot exactly what you were doing after being distracted by something else?

[ASUmusicMAN]

no I didn't look at the rest of his site...now that I did...hmmm...looks like he may just be a smart ass

extra credit is fine, but I have problems with people who can't do the shit getting credit...how can you get extra credit if you don't even have credit?? it no longer is extra credit and is now credit for not doing the original assignment.

Do people momentarily forget stuff sure...but there's a line...did you physics teacher ever forget Newton's second law momentarily....me thinks not

[Malicious Intent]

My school maths teacher dresses(d) up like a goblin and runs around a forest at weekends. One day she came in dressed as a knight, complete with beard.

[Wolfie]

My school maths teacher dresses(d) up like a goblin and runs around a forest at weekends. One day she came in dressed as a knight, complete with beard.

That's pretty odd. I did have history teacher who used to dress up in costumes but it was related to the historical figures or periods he was talking about so it was not too wierd.

[Shawn]

I had one Prof this year that would have had little business teaching elementary. Seriously.

[method77]

That's pretty odd. I did have history teacher who used to dress up in costumes but it was related to the historical figures or periods he was talking about so it was not too wierd.

no dude. That's still weird

I can't imagine any kid keeping a straight face if his teacher is dressed up like Ghengis Khan

[DudeAsInCool]

maybe math is easy for him--that's great, but it isn't necessarily the case for everyone else in his class. extra credit should go to people who make interesting mistakes, since they are the ones who need it.  this is the teacher's way of trying to find students who need help, then giving them help.  would you rather she did nothing and failed everyone? 

I agree with your assessment, Nate. My mom was alot of like this teacher. She believed everybody started out as 'average' - and if they learned something, then they were entitled to a higher grade because they were 'learning'...