Saturday, April 16

Saturday school

Ok, first off, I have proven that I am a horribly unreliable blogger. I will work on getting better.

Random thought of the day. I worked at Saturday school this morning. In addition to providing extra tutoring for students it is also a way to make up attendance. . . when you realize that it is April, you have 15-20 absences and can't get credit for the semester for anything over 9 and panic. We let them come 3 hours a week on Saturdays and make up the time. Today they needed a math teacher. I told the lady in charge on Wednesday to make me her absolute last backup person. While I am not horrible at math it has been a long, long time and I tend to get confused on the rules. Today I was able to help 7 kids. . . most of whom told me how to do it first or I just asked the right questions like:

"So after you set it up, what should you do first?"

"What is the order of operations here?"

and other mathy type questions that I remember. I don't think I confused more than 1 poor kid and by the end of the 3 hours I was actually beginning to remember algebra and geometry, I think. Now it is also possible that I was just fooling myself and doing all the questions completely wrong because I only went and asked the AP math teacher (doing a lesson down the hall) one question cause I kept having to bother the class and I have a phobia about that. All in all I think it went pretty well. My students even smiled to see me on Saturday. That is encouraging. They didn't groan and walk out though I freaked out one kid entirely trying to teach him math instead of English. . . he left early and said he would see me on Monday.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I recall, you explained some calculus to me once, so from that, I'm sure you did fine.

Sher said...

Great! Is that what I have to look forward to if I get this teaching job? Saturday school? No fun!

~lynnie said...

Hmm. . .I do think I remember trying to explain some calculus to you, Carson. Was I right? Did you pass? I was always really bad at Algebra and better at Trig and Cal. But none of these kids were doing that stuff. . .just algebra. :)

And Sheri, i'm sure that preppy private Christian schools don't have to make there kids do attendance make-up. They would just get lectured by their parents and the problem would be solved! I'm in a totally different situation. But you *will* have to attend every football, baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse (just threw that in there) game that is played.

Sher said...

Oh, I love going to sporting events like that! I'll probably drag Deva along with me!

And not all of these "preppy private school" kids are good! Trust me! A lot of my little boy friends in town went to one of these schools in Fort Worth, and they are far from being well-behaved...just in a different way from your kids.

Sher said...

PS - Someone I know has a birthday coming up in two days!!!! Have any special requests for presents?

~lynnie said...

True, Sheri. Prep school kids have their own kind of misbehavior. . . I mean I have *no* desire to teach at a private school. I may not have a lot of parental support from home, but their parents have a respect for teachers. At church none of the ESL ladies call me or dan by name. . . just maestro/maestra. We've lost that in America. [clip out the rant :)]