No stupid questions

Yesterday, as we were completing our word problem of the day, I asked the kids if there were any questions. No hands went up, yet I knew that everyone had not quite gotten the concept because the solution required subtraction and a lot of kids had added.

So I told the kids that I wanted them to know that no one was going to laugh at them if they asked a question or said that they didn't understand. That no one was going to think that they were dumb for asking a question. That the only dumb thing would be if they did NOT understand but sat there without asking me to explain and then still didn't know for the next time.

Then I asked again if there were any questions. One boy raised his hand, and I called on him.

"Can I bring a soccer ball tomorrow?"

OK, that thing about no stupid questions? Nevermind.

Behold the human calculator

I am smart. I mean REALLY smart. We're talking Earth-shattering GENIUS here!

Well, at least according to my kids.

The other day, I had picked my class up from art where Anonymous Joe was waiting at the door. I reminded them that they should thank him for getting them all copies of a multiplication song CD.

The kids thanked him and then started saying their 3s, with AJ singing right along.

3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27, 30.

By then, I was walking the kids down the hallway, and I added, "And don't forget 33 and 36!" since we learn the tables through 12 times, even though the songs stop at 10 times the number.

One of the little boys in line said, "Mister Teacher, do you know 3 times one million?"

I said, "Yes, it's 3 million."

About 5 kids in the line gave an awed, "WHOAAAAA" -- the same sound uttered by a crowded stadium when Lebron James jumps from the 3-point line and delivers a tomahawk dunk.

Another child asked, "Do you know SIX times one million??"

I replied, "But of course -- 6 million!"

By now there were murmerings in the line that I might be the second coming.

Another boy tested me, "Mister Teacher, do you know what is four. . . plus. . . three?"

"Um, seven."

"Oh yeah!!" said the boy, with a beatific smile on his face, as if I had just told him the meaning of life.

Genius. I like the sound of that.

Let them have cake!!

I gave a math test on Friday that was taken from the students' text books. These chapter tests often have one or more questions that require a written explanation in addition to, or in place of, a numerical answer. Since the Gen Ed kids I used to teach were always hardly able to express themselves through writing, and since I now teach English Language Learners who REALLY have trouble expressing themselves in written English, I usually make these questions Extra Credit questions.

One such question on Friday's test read as follows," A cake has been cut into 40 pieces. Is it reasonable to say that this is enough cake for 32 people? Explain."

If the kids said anything to the extent that yes, it is reasonable because there are more pieces of cake than there are people, I gave them 1 point extra credit. If they expressed things even more clearly, I gave them 2 points.

One boy wrote this, "No, it doesn't make sense because sometimes people want to eat 2 pieces of cake or three."

I gave him 2 extra credit points. It wasn't really the answer I was looking for, but he explained his thinking quite clearly, and being a man with a large appetite myself, I can't disagree with him...

I'm finding my voice again

Thanks to either time or antibiotics (or quite possibly the Junior Whopper I had for lunch today), my voice seems to be slowly returning. Thank you to everyone who voiced (oops) concern for me over the weekend. It was such a great topic that I even wrote about it for this week's Mr. Teacher column over on education.com, titled The Voice of the People. Go check it out and leave a comment or 4.

We compared numbers today. Greater than, less than, that sort of thing. My kids seemed to grasp that pretty well for the most part. Or course, they really sank their teeth into the whole "alligator mouth eats the greater number" mnemonic. Literally. Almost all of them had the inequality sign pointing the right way on their exercises, but almost all of them had drawn HUGE inequality signs, complete with jagged teeth, forked tongues, and in some cases, firey breath.

A fellow teacher, Mrs. Math told me that one child looked at an exercise where the two sides were equal and exclaimed, "The alligator don't know which side to eat!!"

Blessed are the logical

I'm starting to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not very good at math. Yeah, THAT Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I've been working on multiplication and division word problems with my students, and I've noticed a striking similarity between some of their answer choices and a famous story from the New Testament.

Just imagine if this was a math problem, posed to the young gospel writers:
Jesus has 5 loaves of bread. He wants to split the bread equally among 1000 people who are hungry. How many loaves of bread will each person receive?

Now, if MML&J tackled this problem the way many of MY students would, they would multiply 5 times 1000 and get 5000.
Each person will receive 5000 loaves of bread.

No wonder everyone ate to their fill and there was a multitude still left over!

In the case of the Gospel story, this is referred to as a miracle, and I happen to believe in its veracity. Not so much with my kids.

On the test I gave today, one question was, "Mrs. M. had 30 pieces of candy. She wants to give the same amount of candy to 10 students. How many pieces of candy will each student get?”

Every time I saw an answer of 300 (or even 30, from my just plain confused kids), I kept wanting to ask, "So you think this is a loaves and fishes situation?"

Oh well, at least I know what I'll be concentrating even harder on next week.