Metric System Problems

Could this be the reason so many American students (and/or) adults have problems with the metric system?

(P.S. Only 9 days left for free books for beginning readers. See Dec/31 post below to enter)

3rd Grade Math -- Really?

We are 27 school days into the new near. Sub jobs normally show up slowly the first three weeks. I have already put in 13 subbing days and I have 7 future assignments booked over the next two weeks.

Since I just dropped a bank vault load of money into car maintenance and repair, I'm grateful for the fast start but also tired of working almost every day. I wonder what is going on in the school district that has so many substitute covered vacancies so soon?

Anyway, today's class of 3^rd graders presented me with the following math problem from last night's homework.

After reading (...and re-reading it a few times), using a pencil to write down stuff as I carefully and slowly read each sentence, I finally figured out the answer to #15....I think.

I invite you to give it a go and post your answer in the comments section. Please include the number of times you had to re-read it and the total time it took you to get it.

(I'll hold off posting all responses until a week from today to foil the cheaters who might be tempted to peek.)

(click to enlarge)

9/25/2013 update:

Judging by the comments, we seem to have a pretty bright readership group here.

898 is the correct answer, but I would not expect the average 3rd grader to reason it out without help.

It's official - School Year 2012-13

The new school year started last week and I was able to pick up a half day in a 3rd grade classroom on Monday and a two day, 5th grade assignment for Thursday and Friday.  

The two days with the 5th graders was just average. Constant requests to "watch a movie" (not on the lesson plan) and requests for when they get P.E. (also not on the lesson plan). The best part of this assignment was the Hawaiian shortbread cookies and chilled Diet Pepsi the teacher left for me (That was on the lesson plan!).

I needed the caffeine.

The 28 newly minted 3rd graders on the other hand, couldn't have been more fun. One boy surprised me with his problem solving math skills.

The worksheet question was: How many teddy bears are there in the picture?

While all the other kids started counting, he called out "13" without apparently counting. I asked how he came up with the correct answer so quickly.

"It's easy! There are three rows of four bears and one extra. Three times four is twelve and one extra makes 13"

I not sure at what grade they start teaching multiplication facts, but I'm pretty sure this kid is ahead of the curve.

Klepto Katie…

Katie put a booger on my chair!!

As designated chair inspector for the day, I pointed out that the indicated booger on his chair was just a scuff mark. 

“It’s NOT A BOOGER! Now let’s get back to work and quit tattling!”

At first impressions, it appeared that the short, cute little girl was being picked on and bullied by some of the other kids in the classroom. But after the first half dozen, tattletale complaints, I started watching Katie with more than the usual frequency of required scrutiny. Initial impressions can be wrong.

It’s the second day in this classroom and I’m see that “they” aren’t picking on Katie, SHE is picking on “them”!!  

 Katie goes out of her way to tick off as many of her classmates as possible in the most irritating ways and she’s very sneaky about doing it!

When she thinks I’m not looking in her direction and she’s off on the next quest to push some buttons. If she’s not constantly blowing her nose and pretending to wipe it on chairs, desks and bodies on her way to the trash can, she’s snatching anything that isn’t nailed down off/under/around the desks of other kids as she wanders the room.

Katie (not her real name) is a 3rd grader at the country club school just up the road from where I live. She is having a hard time making friends. It’s pretty easy to see why.

When I had a chance, I called her over for a quite conference to point out that I was aware of some of the things she was doing.

K: Nobody likes me.

Me: Why do you think that?

K: (shrugs)

Me: Do you think maybe that when someone takes things without asking might not be the best way to “borrow” stuff?

K: (nods yes)

Me: Katie, can you see how words like ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘May I’ might help you to make friends.

K: I don’t have any friends.

Me: No friends at all?

K: (she nods the affirmative).

Me: Don’t you want to have friends?

K: (another nod).

Me: Do you see how taking other kids’ things and putting pretend boogers on peoples’ stuff might not seem “friendly”?  

K: (another nod)

Me: So why don’t we try to do the ‘friendly’ thing and “ask” permission before “borrowing” stuff and also stop putting pretend boogers on people.

Do you think that might work?

K: (smiles and nods again)

Me: Let’s get back to work, OK?

As she makes her way back to her chair, I watch as she snatched a pencil off the first unattended desk she passed.

My end of day report, including observations about Katie, was probably not new information to the teacher.

The Word Problem Committee…

Third grade math text books must be written by “socially correct (SC)” committees without regard for clarity. That’s the only possible explanation I can fathom when you come across examples like problems #2 & #3 below:

(click to enlarge)

 First draft: There are 28 people camping for the night and they share 7 tents. How many people slept in each tent? (Answer: 4)

SC Member #1: Since this is for 3^rd graders, shouldn’t we somehow make it relevant and inclusive for them?

SC Member #2: Ok, sure. How ‘bout this:

There are 28 students camping for the night and they share 7 tents. How many students sleep in each tent? (Answer: 4)

SC Safety Officer: Hummm, 28 unsupervised kids in the woods at night? I don’t think that sends the correct message. Remember these are 3^rd graders and that might give them the wrong idea about being safe.

SC Member #1: Ok, Ok…Let’s do this:

There are 28 students and their chaperones camping for the night and they share 7 tents. How many people sleep in each tent? (Answer: 4)

SC Member #2: Wait a minute, doesn’t that change the answer? I mean if each tent has 4 kids and one chaperone, that makes 5 people x 7 tents = 35 people not 28! Right?

SC Member #1:Oh! Good catch. Let’s change the answer to ‘5’.

SC Member #2: I’m not sure that’s the best thing. Everyone knows that 3^rd graders don’t really “read the words” in word problems. They tend to automatically take the numbers they see in the problem and divide: 28 divided by 7 = 4 as an answer.

SC Member #1: Well technically, it could be read “28….studentsandchaperones” if you read it really, really fast and that means that the “28 people” includes all the students AND chaperones together, right? Maybe we could annotate the Teacher’s Edition (TE)  reference to make the following notation:

Note to teacher: There are 28, not 35, total people out in the woods that night. If you misinterpret the wording at this crucial point in the word problem sequence and get an answer of ‘5’ instead of ‘4’, you’re screwed when you attempt to answer the next question since we haven’t gotten to fractions yet.

      Sincerely, The Socially Correct (if not necessarily grammar literate) Committee

SC Safety Officer: What are the chances that the teacher will be out for the day and the substitute teacher doesn’t have the TE Math book with the “clarification notice”. That could be a problem!

SC Member #2:  Let’s not do the “Note to teacher” notice. It makes us look incompetent not being able to write a simple 3^rd grade math problem. Besides, the teachers will figure it out on their own if we give them the correct answers to work backward from.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear reader: For the next one, you’re on your own as to how they came up with this one. I couldn't see any reference as to how many total booths there are.

 

The indicated answer is"10".  That would mean 10_rows x 10_booths x 100 people = 10 THOUSAND people in the balcony??.

Substitute Teacher Performance Reviews...

Every job I’ve had included some sort of  “performance review” process to let you know where you stood in the ranks of fellow job holders. The results of the review determine pay raises, bonus, a promotion or in some cases a layoff notice. As far as I know, the only profession(s) where this doesn’t happen is the self employed and substitute teachers.

But then again…

(Found this on the desk after the 3rd graders left for the day...)

Colors...

You would think that an average college graduate with a BS degree in math and more than 30yrs of professional computer software programming experience, WITH an unrelated additional six years of experience substitute teaching at all elementary grades from Kinder through sixth grades would be able to handle any 3rd grade worksheet without too much difficulty. Yea, that was my personal misconception up until this week in a 3rd grade classroom.

The science lesson was to complete a worksheet on “The Parts of Plants” which include classifying, identifying parts of plants, what each part does and finally coloring plant pictures with crayons.

Guess which part was my downfall.

“What color is fuchsia?” the boy in a Raiders t-shirt asked. I didn’t have a clue. In fact I thought fuchsia WAS a flower, not a color.

“Uhhh, let me see the worksheet” is my standard stalling tactic when they have me stumped. The sheet pictured four plants and a numbered coded color diagram to indicate what colors to use.

Red, green, blue, peach and even red-orange are pretty straightforward. But there at #11 was “Fuchsia”. I was hoping to get a clue when I see that the plant part for #11 was the flower part and not something easy like the bark of a tree (brown). I sent him off to ask some buddies in class to see what color THEY might decide to use.

Next came two girls lugging a huge plastic bin with what looked like a couple thousand loose crayons asking: “What color crayon is cerulean? We can’t find it in here.” I sent them off as well. The kids eventually DID find the “cerulean” and “fuchsia” crayons in the big box.

I used them to mark a copy of the worksheet (below) to bring home and ask if this was supposed to be common knowledge among the average, intelligent, unbiased adult female that happens to be married to clueless male.

Turns out, it IS!

Poo...

Twenty 3rd graders, forty shoes, one fresh dog poo; guess how many kids tracked it in the classroom after recess. One would have been more than enough, but FOUR??…

How was your day?

Odds & Ends

I was informed by one of my loyal readers that it’s been more than two weeks since I’ve written anything related to actual school stuff. I was told that posting videos and math problems don’t count.

So, Gary…from the “Odd things I noticed while at school” diary these last couple of weeks:

3rd grade: Be sure to remove the headphones plug from the cassette player to make the speakers play. I should have tested the player before school instead of the instant I needed it at the start of the reading lesson.

4th grade: Assigned nicknames for a different pair of tattlers – “Toe Jam” and “Arm Pit”

4th&6th grades: Subbed two classes at two different schools in a single day. The 6th graders were better behaved.

The teachers were required to observe each other in their respective classrooms for some kind of teacher evaluation process. I got paid for a single full day instead of two half days which would have paid more.

5th grade: First time I’ve ever seen two sign in sheets for substitute teachers in the office. Twenty out of twenty-seven teachers out in a single day!

1st grade: Dealing with the little Khan man again. I see a little improvement. At least he isn’t pretending not to know English any more.

STAR TEST 24…

Update: The API scores for all California schools have just been been posted. Even the one this post is based on...


I’ve signed nondisclosure agreements, submitted to security background checks and memorized codes used to access restricted facilities in my previous profession. It never occurred to me I would require anything approaching that level of security while subbing for 3rd graders.

When I was informed a few weeks ago that I would be giving the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) tests for a 3rd grade class, I didn’t anticipate any big deal. I’ve handed out tests and monitored test taking with several classes before.

But, when the principal handed me a twenty page “excerpt” for the three sections of STAR tests I was to give over the five day assignment, I should have gotten a clue.

The first thing I had to sign was a nondisclosure agreement that said I wouldn’t reveal, copy, publish or disclose in any manner or method any of the test questions or answers.

I was required to maintain the integrity of the test booklets in my possession for fear that someone else might take one or copy it for what ever reason unknown.

I had to sign a daily check-in/check-out sheet for the latched booklet carrying case. I was required to count and verify the number test booklets twice daily make sure I had them all. I was required to monitor and record any instances of cheating during the test taking process.

It was almost like I was a the star character in my favorite TV show…

(My advance apologies to the writers and producers of “24”)

Tink….Tink…Tink..Tink.TinkTinkTink.Tin.Ti.TiT.t.t.t.t.t.t.

(--The following takes place between the hours of 08:00am and 10:50am--)

Agent ‘H’ (me): I’m the STU agent (Substitute Teacher Unit), code name “Homework” you sent for. I’m here to interrogate the suspects.

Security (Office) Secretary:
Sign in here for your secure room key and assignment folder. Your controller, code named “Principal”, will fill you in with all the details. I’ll let him know you’re here.

tink…tink…tink…tink

P: We had an advance team go in and sanitize the target area for you.
H: Yes, that should help. All those grammar rules posters and multiplication tables of secret data would be a deterrent to getting accurate intel from this group.

P: We’ve also set up isolation cells for each suspect. There is no possible way for any of the suspects to communicate with each other. The “privacy folders” are made of state of the art, sound suppressing cardboard!

tink…tink…tink…tink

H: What else we know about this group?
P: All we know at this point is that it is a terrorist cell of 28 individuals known as “The Third Graders”. We don’t know what kind of intelligence they have but we do know that they are reluctant to divulge any information at this point in time.

tink…tink…tink…tink

P: This canister contains restricted questions that we want answered. We have a time commitment to obtain those answers. We cannot fail! Do you understand? Are you sure you can do this job?

H: It might take some “enhanced interrogation” methods to get at the truth, but yes, I’m sure it can be done. A little water hoarding should help things along. No drink or bathroom breaks during the test usually gets to the truth.

H: If that doesn’t work, can I shoot a few in the knees?
P: Unfortunately, no. That would be against school policy.

tink…tink…tink…tink

Nose Hair and Ear Wax…

One of the more annoying situations a substitute teacher has to deal with is the constant tattling in the lower grades. The serious stuff we DO have to come down hard on, but the petty stuff really drives me to distraction.

I’m in my second day of a five day assignment when one 3rd grade boy confronts me with an intense attitude and seriously troubled look. He’s tattling about another kid who called him a name. The suspect in question was only three paces behind and chiming in that the first kid had shoved him.

My usual tactic in these situations is to deliver a short lecture about proper behavior at school and have them say “sorry” while shaking hands.

This time I decided to do something different.

Guys! I don’t know who did what first and I’m not going to try and find out. What I CAN do is put both your names on my report for your teacher and let him sort it out when he gets back or...we can settle this in a different way. You decide what you want me to do.

They both decided that “different” was the choice they wanted.
“Ok guys, here’s the deal. From now to the end of the school year you are best friends!”

(…both glaring at each other but not saying a word)

And as best friends, I’m going to give you nicknames to use when talking to each other.

(…both now looking at me with a suspicious look)

Pointing to the first kid I said: From now on your nickname is “NoseHair” and your nickname, pointing to the second kid, is “EarWax”. Now shake hands and apologize to each other using your new names.

Kid1: I’m sorry, EarWa…
(He couldn’t finish because he was laughing.)

Kid2: I’m sorry too, NoseHair!
(He was trying REAL hard not to laugh.)

They then ran off laughing.

Seemingly, whatever problems they originally had with each other appeared forgotten. If it lasts to the end of the year that's great. If not, at least they won't be bugging me again for the rest of the week.

Wanted...

Since I last checked in about those last two, trying, terrible, 6th grade classes, I filled out this last week with 3rd graders once, two 5th grade classes, one really odd day with 4th graders and today with 2nd graders.

Because I hadn’t subbed for the 3rd grade teacher before, she was a little worried about turning her class over to me. An office staff recommendation went a long way to reassure her that I wouldn’t damage her kids too much.

She had left me detailed plans, notes, and extra work if needed (I didn’t). Her class was terrific, I had a good time with them and I left a good report. I encountered her in the teachers lounge yesterday and she was telling me how much the kids liked me.

“They even drew a red heart around where you wrote your name on the board!!”. Are you available for next Friday? They have a field trip to the Winchester Mystery House and I’ve seen it so many times and all those stairs are tiring!

Before I could answer, a teacher I had already arranged an assignment with on the same date spoke up: “He’s mine! I reserved him two weeks ago!”

It’s nice to be wanted, but the field trip sounded much more fun than 5th graders…

Five Ws…

They had just returned from the five day Thanksgiving holiday. Monday's very multi-cultural 3rd graders were excited about the upcoming holidays. When it came time for the social studies assignment to write an outline for a newspaper article, they had a worksheet with the famous “Five Ws of Journalism” to fill in.

“What do we write about?”

I’ve always found that it’s much easier to write about something I’m interested in rather than an assigned, boring topic I know little about. Since the lesson plan was a little vague about answers to the kids’ question, I suggested writing about Thanksgiving or the upcoming Christmas holiday. Santa Claus is always a favorite “Who”.

Who is the story about?
What happens?
When is it going to happen?
Where is it happening?
Why is it celebrated?
How is it celebrated?

“We don’t have Christmas. We’re Jewish”

How about Hanukah, then?

“I’m Indian and we don’t do Christmas either. Can I write a story about something else?”

My knowledge of world cultural celebrations is pretty much exhausted so I allowed anyone who didn’t want to do the holiday theme choose something else as long as it followed the “Five Ws” format.

“Indian kid again: I wanna do a story about the Mumbai bombings. I already know the ‘Who’ ”

Fortunately, that’s about the time I noticed that the “News Outline” on the lesson plan was related to the earlier reading lesson on the “First Thanksgiving”. The kids were supposed to pretend to be a reporter attending and reporting on that event.

CTL-ALT-DELETE faulty instruction from the substitute teacher! Reset the topic and get back on a less controversial track.

(…although, the bombing story from a 3rd grader's viewpoint would be more interesting)

Farts Strong Enough to Kill Computers?

...at least that's what I thought I read, but just like in those infomercials for miracle "Shamoo Towels", there's MORE!
___

STUART, Fla. – A student at a Florida school has been arrested after authorities said he was "passing gas" and turned off his classmates' computers. According to a report released Friday by the Martin County Sheriff's Office, the 13-year-old boy "continually disrupted his classroom environment" by intentionally breaking wind. He then shut off some computers other students were using.

The Spectrum Junior-Senior High School was arrested Nov. 4.

A school resource officer placed the boy under arrest after he confessed about his behavior, according to the report. He was charged with disruption of school function and released to his mother.
___

Information from: The Stuart News, http://www.tcpalm.com

The official police report -> http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/files/Martinreport.pdf

Just coincidentally, I was in a 3rd grade classroom yesterday where I ran across the following book: The Gas We Pass - The Story of Farts.

The perfect Christmas gift for someone special I know!

I Thought I Was Done...

The last week of school is pretty much a “do nothing” week.

Field trips to the water park, Great America theme park and year end parties dominate the educational scene. There usually haven’t been many calls to substitute the last week in previous years. So I was surprised Monday afternoon by a call to sub for a 3^rd grade class on Tuesday.

The teacher’s additional note announced: “Tuesday is field day”.

Of course I took it. It’s one last “pay day” before the financial summer drought.

Dressed appropriately in jeans and running shoes, I ran soccer relay races for half a day in the warm (ie: low 90F’s) California sun followed by an afternoon in the air conditioned classroom watching: “Garfield the Movie”.

Now, I'm done...

Light Payday for January…

G3

Friday was the last day of the pay period for the month of January. I was fortunate to pick up two days in the same 3^rd grade class this last week. I say “fortunate” because it tripled my paycheck for the month.

For the entire month, I picked up only three classes subbing. Not quite enough to cover the medical insurance payment for January.

Oh, that’s another other bit of good news for us. We finally have medical insurance again as of Jan/1!

After dumping our previous “we deny all claims” carrier, Crap Assed National, Inc., we reapplied to the big “Blue” carriers. We were subsequently “declined” by Blue Cross and ignored for a few months by Blue Shield.

We then applied and were successfully accepted by Kaiser Permanente. (…Blue Shield finally responded a month later, but by then it was too late to consider them.)

But, back to class:

Third graders are great! They still like school and want to do work. They still tattle a little but they are gradually moving out of that phase.

They are a lot of fun to be around, even if I have to confiscate the occasional improvised blow gun made from a ballpoint pen sleeve and pen cartridge.

“Blow gun” duly noted and taped to the substitute teacher “End of Day” report…

I Get Letters...

Had a good time in last Friday's 3rd grade class...



Third graders are still in the "we like school" mode...

First Day of the New Year …

EG11-G3

This is the first day back in class (grade 3) for 2007. This wasn’t the first opportunity to work this New Year as I turned down the call to class every day since January 3 (the first day school resumed).

I think I had an excuse to not take all those Kindergarten assignments. If not, I made one up. I just didn’t feel up to it yet. Just exercising the only “guest teacher” perk I have.

BTW, the 3^rd graders today were great. Lesson plan was complete, the material readily findable, in a brand new school room with working heat.

I’m in 6^th grade tomorrow. Maybe something excitingly blogable will happen...

Mindset...

EG13-G3

I haven’t been working for most of the week. In fact this was the first assignment call I accepted this week.

Instead, I spend a couple of days trying to extract my lungs and some parts of internal organs from one of two body orifices and occasionally both at the same time. A stomach flu will have that affect sometimes. A couple of more days to recover and I’m good to go.

The district SubFinder system called Thursday night for a 5^th grade assignment at a school I been to frequently this year.

I arrived at the appointed time and was given a key to a room not in the usual block of 5^th grade classrooms. Curious because I know they group the grade levels together.

On entering the classroom, I notice the desks are arranged in groups of four. Again, for some reason, it struck me as odd for 5^th grade. The room, somehow, didn’t “look” like a 5^th either.

It wasn’t until I counted the pods of “groupings of four” desks that I realized that this couldn’t be a 5^th grade class. There were only 20 desks where there should be something like 30.

It was only then I checked the class attendance list and saw this was, indeed, a 3^rd grade classroom.

Without realizing it, I had a mindset going in ready to deal with 5^th graders today and was temporarily disoriented to find I had to adjust for 3^rd graders. That hasn’t happened before.

It seems that this teacher taught 5^th grade last year, changed to 3^rd this year and the system hadn’t been updated yet.

Resetting the mindset for 3^rd grade wasn’t really a problem, just a mild suprise. Third graders are a fun trip. I had one of the best “problem free” and “stress free” classes I have had all year.

Tooth Fairy Inflation...

EG5-G3

Lots of substitute call activity this morning:

1) 05:50 I missed this first call. By the time I fumbled the phone off the hook and realized the phone was switched to the second line, the answering machine downstairs had taken a message and sub system had hung up..

2) 06:30 First grade class assignment would have been “ok” except the teacher attempted to leave a verbal sub plan on the special instructions part of the recording which included the first three digits of her cell phone number to contact her if I needed anything before the sub line recording cut the rest of it off. I interpret this to mean there is no written lesson plan available today. Pass.

3) 06:40 Call from my shit listed school. Hang up before even finding out what class assignment it was.

4) 07:10 Duplicate call for #2. Evidentially all the other subs turned down the “audio lesson plan” teacher and the system had run through the entire sub list without any takers. Pass for a second time.

5) 07:30 Call for the same school as call #2 and #4 but for grade 3 starting at 08:00am. Does this indicate an attempt for a “bait-n-switch”? Show up for grade three and get the phoned in lesson plan grade 1 assignment?

So today after passing on the first four calls of the morning, I had a great day with this third grade class. The only thing of blog worthiness was the dark haired girl in the front with a loose tooth giving me hourly updates on its attachment status. She finally pushed it loose toward the end of class.

I asked what the going rate for tooth fairy collections was; she told me it was $5 !! This was a shocker. I was expecting maybe fifty cents.

I took an informal poll with the rest of the kids asking what the going rate was at their house.

A good number of kids informed me that they get $10/per!! Others informed me that they get $20/per if it’s a “silver tooth”!!

This last rate coming from kids whose dental work seems to have been done outside the U.S. as I don’t think silver caps are done here anymore.

Most of the kids verified that $1 was the median going rate for dental exchange in their home.

This must have a shocker of a news bulletin for the one little girl who told me she only gets twenty-five cents.