Acts of Vengucation

Back in the day, I used to be an avid comic book collector. Last week? No, I'm talking about when I was in high school. Instead of dating, I had my superhero stories. Worked out ok in the end.

One of the cross-over storylines that I remember most was called Acts of Vengeance. This mult-part event involved Spiderman, Iron Man, The Avengers, and many other of Marvel's heroes. In a nutshell, 5 or 6 of the top villains got together and decided that they were tired of constantly getting beaten up by their archnemeses. Spidey knew all of Green Goblin's moves, so he could always defeat him. The Fantastic Four had faced Dr. Doom so often, they could handle him without issue.

So the villains decided that they should swap dance partners to defeat the heroes. Magneto would pick a fight with Ironman, who had never fought him before. And why they never thought of THAT one before, who knows. etc, etc

Did I lose you yet? Thankfully, I know Joel, Chad, and Ed u Cater sometimes read this blog and at least know what I'm talking about...

I was thinking a few weeks ago how possibly this strategy might work for us at school. One of my teaching partners is having trouble with some of her kids. They are used to her, but what if I came in and worked with them? Basically doing the same things they've already heard in class, but coming from a different voice.

A 4th grade teacher comes occasionally to MY room to work with a couple of my lower kids with the same intent.

The problem seems to be that these kids, who seem totally clueless, in class and on tests, seem to know what they're doing with the new tutor.

I have worked with Mrs. Math's kids a couple of times now. She told me that these kids do not know how to regroup when they subtract. That they always forget to regroup, or that they do it the wrong way. Yet when I sit them down and give them a few problems to work, they do it just fine with no prompting from me!

I mean, there are slight issues, but overall, if I didn't know any better, I would say these kids know how to regroup!

Sounds like good news on the surface -- these kids HAVE been listening! They DO know how to subtract! But the fact is that they still are not doing it when it counts -- in class, on homeworks, on tests.

That can be very frustrating for the teacher of record.

Maybe I just need to sic Dr. Doom on them and see how they regroup...

Not your usual Easter plans

Last Thursday, I gave my kids a Quick Write assignment where the prompt was "What are your plans for this Sunday?" We talked about how Sunday was Easter, so if they had Easter plans, that was what I wanted them to write about, and if they didn't celebrate Easter, then they should just write about what they would do on a normal Sunday.

Some of the results were pretty amusing.

From one kid saying that, as usual, he would top the day by seeing a scary movie, to a girl talking about Easter dinner at the Chinese food restaraunt, one stood head and shoulders above the rest.

One of my really good writers, very articulate, wrote about how he would be going to his cousins' house, and they had asked him to be the bunny rabbit. He hoped that they would not beat him with a stick. Last year, when he was Santa Claus, he got beat up by some 1st graders, and got away just before they started throwing rocks at him.

Not really sure how much of that is fact and how much is fiction, but I found it a very interesting tale nonetheless.

Thank you, Coach K!

In regards, to my early posting from about a month ago...

Coach K, you have come through in stellar fashion. Going above and beyond my request (I did, after all, only ask that you make it to the Final Four), you have given us our 4th National Championship.

Thank you!!

And Chad, who posted this:

"Don't you think you're asking a bit too much here? Dook to get to the Final Four? Why not ask for mandatory state testing to go away or for all of your students to enter you classroom each year reading at grade level. I'm trying to remember the last team from Tobacco Road to win a title? Oh yeah, Carolina last year. How about the team before that? Oh yeah, The Heels again in 2005. Perhaps Duke will someday regain their glory and you will be happy. I just hope it's not this year...or next....or next..."

Now it will be much easier for you to remember the Tobacco Road champion. Duke.

All of my kids at grade level... don't be ridiculous...

"Reasonable" Math Problems

Here is the post that showed up on I Want to Teach Forever on April Fool's Day, reposted in its entirety here:

As I mentioned the other day, we have dived in headfirst to the "tough stuff" of the 3rd grade curriculum. Word problems, 2-step problems, and now, "Reasonable" problems. It's pretty ironic, but even with 4 years of high school math under my belt, 3 ½ years of college math and engineering, and 2 years of graduate school math and engineering, I had NEVER come across this type of math problem in my life until I started teaching 3rd grade.

Here's a typical problem:

Mr. Sutton buys 4 tools at the hardware store. The least expensive tool is $10, and the most expensive tool is $20. What is a reasonable total for all 4 tools?

In my opinion, Mr. Sutton should look at his receipt and find the exact prices of each tool and add them, or at least round them and add. This lowest and highest deal is silly. Yet teach it we must.

Oh, and there's also a second kind of reasonable question.

Suzy the Squirrel can bury 3 to 5 nuts every day. How many days will it take her to bury 40 nuts?

Nevermind the fact that I always have to stop and deal with giggle fits every year when we do this problem in class (the kids giggle, too. NUTS!), but I think this kind is more difficult than the first because it requires something beyond just adding to find a total.

Speaking of unreasonableness, I have been working on getting my honeymoon booked. My fiancé and I have decided upon Turks and Caicos (mostly just because it is incredibly fun to say), and a 5 night stay at an all-inclusive resort there. However, the airfare is redonkulous!! Almost 700 bucks per person! Of course, if it was some of my kids charging me airfare, it wouldn't be so bad, because 2 people at 700 dollars each would only be 702 dollars. Possibly even 698 dollars. However, in the real world, it's so much more than that.

Ideally, my book would win the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest and the $15,000 prize that goes along with it. Realistically, though, that's probably not going to happen. Any chance everyone could encourage their friends and neighbors to buy a couple of copies of Learn Me Good? On the Kindle even?

Coach K has already come through and delivered on my request. Somehow I doubt he's going to come to the wedding, but at least he gave me my early present.

Is it still "reasonable" to think that Duke can win it all?

OK, so I don't teach Kindergarten

OK, ok, so a few of you caught on (those of you actually reading this blog, that is) to my little April Fool's prank. And ok, ok, so it's pretty much the same thing I did last year. But it seemed fun last year, so why not try it again?

Several years ago, artists of various comic strips in the newspaper switched places and drew each other's strips on April 1st. The Dilbert guy drew Garfield. The Garfield guy drew Rose is Rose. The Rose is Rose guy drew Foxtrot. Etc. I loved it. I wish they would do it every year.

It inspired me to try the same thing here with a few blogs. So a few of us switched places for the day. If you read my post yesterday and were wondering why I seemed so chippy and talking about kindergarteners--ACTUAL kindergarteners, not just kids who ACT like kindergarteners--then know this. It weren't me! Yesterday's post was written by Halpey of Look at my Happy Rainbow!

MY post, continuing the topic of Reasonableness (and un) can be found at Mr. D's blog, I Want to Teach Forever (FAME!) Definitely worth checking out! You can also read my honeymoon plea!

Here's the entire list of April Fools:

I posted "Reasonable" Math Problems at I Want to Teach Forever.

Mr. D posted Use a Dartboard to Review Geometry and Probability at Mrs. Bluebird's Classroom.

Mrs. Bluebird posted Molly the Manager at Successful Teaching.

Loonyhiker posted Looks aren't Everything at Scheiss Weekly.

Mamacita posted "Adult" means "Dirty" at Look at My Happy Rainbow!

Halpey posted Q is for Quickie Mart Clerk? here on Learn Me Good.

Hope you enjoyed this fun little activity! If you did, please leave a comment or two!

Oh, and in honor of the month of April and the Fools that go with it, I am offering the Kindle version of Learn Me Good for the (foolishly?) low price of $1.99! Download yours now!

Q is for... Quickie Mart Clerk?

One of our daily activities is drilling all the letters and sounds… in an effort to spice up this monotonous routine, I found some occupation cards to use. Each card has the letter of the alphabet prominently displayed and a picture of a corresponding profession. We say the letter, the sound, and finally the name of the occupation. “A, /a/, astronaut, B, /b/, baker, C, /k/, construction worker," etc.

In an effort to engage my sprouts, I have them sign ‘me too’ when we get to a job they think they might like when they grow up. I’m always amused at which jobs are most popular.

After explaining what an E, /e/, engineer was, many fancied that line of work. I have quite a few girls who thought nothing would be more fulfilling than H, /h/, hairdresser. I’m always happy that R, /r/ rock star isn’t all the rage… the media hasn’t influenced my kindergartners yet. Only one girl wanted to be a Q, /q/, queen… after the activity one day, she came up and whispered in my ear, “a princess gets to become a queen someday…”

When we get to T, /t/, teacher, they all point to me smiling. Naturally, most of them want to be a T, /t/ teacher and that is the greatest reward I could wish for. Who wouldn’t want to spend their day singing, be showered in hugs, practice magic, help children learn to zip their coats, or wear paper hats at work. Teaching kindergarten has made me a better man… I can’t think of anything I’d rather be… not even a K, /k/, karate instructor.

Summer lovin'

Way back in December, my fiance attended my staff Christmas party with me, and got to select a prize while there. Her prize was to choose a day in March to take off at 1:00.

Since her school would hardly honor this prize, it fell to me, and I happily took that day today.

Leaving 2 hours early -- really more like 3 or 4, since I rarely leave before 4:30 -- felt like playing hooky, and I liked it! Driving home with the radio blaring and the window open -- which it had to be, because my A/C is currently not working -- stopping at Lowes to pick up some mulch and flowers for my house. THIS is the life!!

Putting my house on the market next week, so I was able to get a bit of work done outside today in daylight hours. Here's hoping it sells fast!

Crunchy Time

3rd grade math TAKS test is on April 27th. That doesn't leave us with too much time left.

Aside from kids still struggling with the concepts, we have at least covered a lot of the material. Operations, patterns, rounding, measurement, fractions, geometry, etc.

The past few weeks and the next few weeks have been and will be over tougher stuff: The Word Problems.

Most word problems follow some sort of logical path. Most 3rd graders do not. So while it might make perfect sense that if somebody gives away 5 pencils, they should then have LESS pencils than they started with... prompting subtraction...that's not always the way it works out.

Last week, we focused on Two-Step Word Problems. Talk about your basic whipping. There are THREE numbers in the problem now?? We HAVE to add/subtract them all at the same time!!

Usually, when we walk through a problem together, logic prevails. The kids, even the low ones, can tell me when they should add, when they should subtract. The problem arises when the kids face the questions on their own. The main problem being that many of the kids don't actually read the problem or think about what the words mean.

Remember that Far Side cartoon captioned, "What dogs hear?" where the owner said, "Spot, fetch my slippers! Good boy, Spot, that's a good boy, Spot!" and the dog hears, "Spot, blah blah blah blah blah blah, Spot, blah blah blah blah Spot!"

Word problems act in much the same way for a lot of kids.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah 15 blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah 3 blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah?

Ooooooh, I spy, with my tiny little eye, two numbers!! The magic 8 ball in my head says to.... ADD them!

Then the teacher, ME, reads their answer and wonders why the heck each friend has 18 hotdogs, if Alex started with 15 hotdogs and split them up evenly among 3 friends. (Nevermind the fact that they added hotdogs and friends and magically turned them all to hotdogs.)

We start "Reasonableness"-type questions tomorrow. A bit too unreasonable, if you ask me.

Not the answers I am looking for

Does anyone else experience this?

We're looking at a word problem, for instance one that goes like this: "Timmy has 18 marbles. He gives 5 to Fred and 6 to Becky. How many marbles does Timmy have left?"

I walk around the room to see how the kids are doing. I notice one of them has subtracted 6-5. I ask him, "Please tell me why you have subtracted 6 minus 5 here."

He replies, "So that I could get the right answer."

Undeterred (I've heard this one before, after all), I persist: "But how do you know you were supposed to subtract these numbers?"

He responds, "Because it says, 'Timmy has 18 marbles. He gives 5 to Fred and 6 to Becky. How many marbles does Timmy have left?'"

Ironically, I will get these exact same answers from a child in the next class who has ADDED all three numbers.

No matter how many times I try to tell the kids that reciting the word problem in its entirety does NOT explain how they got their answer -- kids still try it.

Unfortunately, sarcasm is often lost of them, so me trying to turn this around on them usually fails miserably.

"Mister Teacher, why haven't we gone to the computer lab lately?"

"Because we had fried chicken for lunch today."

"Mister Teacher, why can't we go outside for recess today?"

"Because the Pledge says, 'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...'"

Narrowing the field

Last month, I posted about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and making the first cut, from 5,000 entrants down to 1,000.

Today (finally!), the second critical date has arrived, the one where the remaining 1,000 were winnowed to the top 250.

Drum roll, please...

I am overwhelmed, excited, astounded, and just a bit gassy to announce...

LEARN ME GOOD IS IN THE TOP 250!!!!!!!!

At this stage of the game, the ENTIRE book is read by Publishers Weekly, and they rate and review it. The next cut comes on April 27th, when they narrow it down to 50 entries.

Man, I might not be able to sleep tonight!

A Travesty

A shocker awaited me at lunchtime on the first day back from Spring Break today. So much so that I felt compelled to write an email to the entire staff of my school, something I don't often do. Here was my letter:

"Hello all,

For my birthday back in February, my team members got together and bought me a present that was near and dear to my heart -- a giant bottle of ketchup. This bottle had my name written on it, and it was placed in the door of the refrigerator in the teacher's lounge, to be used as needed at lunch time. When we left for Spring Break, less than 1/3 of the bottle had been used.

Today, with four very tomato-friendly chicken strips waiting on my tray, I opened the fridge, expecting to find my beloved condiment, but instead discovered that the bottle was gone.

The fridge was full of other things -- plastic bags with food, bottles of water and soda, etc -- so I don't believe that this is a matter of the refrigerator being cleaned out over break (and if it was, there needs to be an announcement next time). Rather, this seems to be a straightforward case of Heinz-jacking.

This is just wrong on so many levels.

To whomever stole my ketchup, all I ask is that you place it back inside the door of the fridge. No questions will be asked, no charges pressed.

Thank you,

JP"

While in the lunchroom, still reeling from the theft, several other teachers mentioned that things have gone missing from their rooms. A CD from our coach's office, candy from several classrooms, pencils, etc.

Hopefully whoever it was (and really, there were only a handful of people around during Spring Break) will get the message and knock it off...

An open letter to Coach K

Dear Coach K (rzyzewski),

First, let me offer my congratulations on once again getting your team into the NCAA tournament -- something that your biggest rival, the Tarholes, were unable to do. Your team this year has shown inconsistency at times, but they have pulled together when it has counted, holding everyone off to win the ACC championship. Singler, Scheyer, and Smith have been awesome, and it has been great to see the emergence of Brian Zoubek as a presence in the paint.

Let me get to the point of my letter. As you may or may not know, I am getting married in July, and while that is still a ways off, I would like to request my wedding gift from you now. While you have not actually received a Save the Date or an invitation, please know that, if you are available, you are certainly invited.

As a gift for our special day, I would love to ask that you win the NCAA Championship this year. But that seems a little much. So instead, I'll merely ask that you take it to the Final Four. No embarrassing losses to Louisville, Purdue, or A&M. If there is a rematch against Villanova, please take your rightful revenge and knock them out of the tourney.

So to sum up, early wedding gift -- Final Four. Oh, and if you DO make it, and could swing courtside TICKETS to your games? That would be spectacular as well.

Good luck and God bless.

Sincerely,

John Pearson

Bards and Sages review

Thanks to Julie over at Bards and Sages for the latest review of Learn Me Good.

"Having a female in your workplace ask you how long you are is awkward. When the female is your 3rd grade student, it becomes surprisingly hilarious."

"Pearson presents the children in his class with all of their foibles, but does so in a way that is endearing and witty without being mean-spirited. You may think it was not possible to nickname one of your students Lucifer and not be mean-spirited, but Pearson manages it surprisingly well. Of course, when you have children in your class named Samsonite and Baby Boy, Lucifer doesn’t strike anyone as all that odd."

Check out the full review here!

Time for March Mathness, Bay-bee!!

It's almost time for the NCAA men's college basketball tournament to get underway again, so as usual, I've created a pool over at espn.com. The name of the pool is March Mathness, and all are invited to enter.

You can create your entry now, but you have to wait until after the pairings are announced to actually make your picks. This will happen late Sunday evening. Picks must be made by early Thursday morning, before the first game starts (the "play-in" game doesn't count towards the bracket choices).

Good luck to all, and I hope to see you there!

Very intolerant...

DISD seems to be sending out a message to Catholics this Lenten season -- Screw you!!

In the past, on Fridays - when Catholics are not supposed to eat meat - the cafeteria has regularly served fish sticks, shrimp, or other acceptable choices. This year, however, there have been chicken nuggets, pizza pockets, and today, some kind of breakfast weiners...

Sure, there have been cheese sticks, but I just refuse to accept that as an entree on ANY day.

What is up, DISD??? Whatever happened to fishstick Friday?

Unaccountable talk

Last week, I assigned a homework over missing information that some of the kids did great on and some didn't get at all. The sort of question like "Sherri has 7 bookshelves. She wants to find the total number of books that she has. What information does she need to find the total number of books? (The answer being: what color her shirt is. Just kidding. She needs to know how many books are on each shelf.)

So I paired up the kids who had gotten all 3 questions right with the kids who had not and had them go over their answers and their reasoning. As they did this, I walked around and listened in.

I happened to overhear one boy asking the girl he was paired with, "So you probably didn't even read this problem, did you? You weren't paying attention, and that's why you got it wrong!" The girl replied, "Yes, I was paying attention," to which the boy responded, "Come on, you weren't, were you?

I had to ask the boy to be just a bit nicer in his "help."

Today, we were looking at word problems. I've been trying to help the kids decide what operation they should use by looking at the units. If the units are the same (ie, 10 bears and 5 more bears), they can add or subtract. If the units are different (ie, 10 bears and 5 cages), they should multiply or divide.

The problem I had tasked them with talked about M&Ms and Skittles and asked how many more M&Ms there were than Skittles. They were discussing what to do in pairs. One little girl (NOT my brightest) was telling her partner that they should multiply or divide because M&Ms and Skittles are different things. The boy, instead of just telling her she was wrong was asking probing questions. "What are they?" he asked. "They are the units," she said. He answered, "But what ARE they? Are they nails and boxes? How are they different?"

He was (correctly) trying to get her to see that they were both types of candy and thus the same, but I had to walk away or risk laughing out loud at their conversation.

Finally, on our way out to the buses today, one of my little girls told me that when her dad got out of jail (!) they were going to move away from the United States. I figured she meant to Mexico, so I was being facetious when I asked, "You will move to Japan?" "No!" she answered. "The moon?" I asked. "No!" again. When I asked her where, she replied, "To Miami."

Geography just is not her strong suit.

What a spork!

Mrs. Math, another 3rd grade teacher, was sitting next to me at a meeting in the cafeteria the other day, and she directed my attention to a box of supplies sitting over in the corner. She said, "See if you can guess what my kids were calling each other today."

I scanned the printing on the box -- Napkins, cups, black sporks, trays.

Would you believe I guessed correctly? The kids were calling each other "black sporks!"

These kids will grab at anything to put each other down!

Well kids, if you are reading, here are a couple more suggestions of nasty names to call each other to REALLY burn:

Late Homework
Yellow Highlighter
Sticky Note
TELPAS Rater
Dirty Overhead Transparancy
Adopted Curriculum
Cum Folder

Read an e-book week

Smashwords is holding a "Read an e-book" promotion for a week, in which many books can be downloaded electronically for a large discount.

I've enrolled Learn Me Good in the program, so from March 7-13, you can get a copy for only $1.00. Just enter coupon code RAE50 at checkout.

While you're there, check out all of the other discounted ebooks, and enjoy the week!

Facebook Fellows, Unite

Well, I've gone and done it. Something so incredibly immodest, it's not even funny. But hey, everyone's doing it, right?

I've created a Facebook fan page for Learn Me Good. So if you're a Facebook-type guy or gal, please join as a fan!

John Pearson is a fan of

Learn Me Good

Create your Fan Badge

A little light TAKS practice

I have not been blogging with my regular frequency, as I have been incredibly busy. I am trying to get my house ready to sell, so I've been painting and prepping; I'm (marginally) involved with the wedding planning; and I'm jumping through all the TAKS hoops that my school is putting up in front of me.

So if you've said to yourself, "Dang, Mister Teacher hasn't said anything funny in a while!" well you're right.

But I'm here writing now. 4th grade took their Writing TAKS test today, and thankfully 3rd grade did not have one, but we gave practice TAKS tests on Monday and Tuesday. The results are both hopeful and depressing at once.

Within my classes, I had some very high scores. Even 2 kids who got a perfect score and several who missed less than 3. By far, the majority of my kids passed with above a 70. But I also had some very low kids -- 30s and 40s -- and I honestly don't see how I'm going to get them to pass.

So much of it seems to be attitude with these kids too. They know how to do the problems that they are missing, but when it's a test and/or I am not in the room, they don't show any work, they don't do the steps, and so they get the answers wrong.

The ones that REALLY bug me are the questions that ask what is 30,000+2,000+70+3, and some kids are too lazy to just frakkin ADD IT UP AND SEE WHAT YOU GET!!! They would rather just pick the first answer they see that has a 3 at the front.

Anyway, most of you are probably saying, "Dang, Mister Teacher STILL hasn't said anything funny in a while!" and you're right.

So this is for you -- some funny things to say.

Egg McMuffin
Studs Terkel
Dick Trickle
Pound Puppies Posed Provocatively
Expired Vienna Sausages
Shinola
My bowels be runnin'
West Virgina