Friday, October 06, 2006

see you in the funny papers...

as a daily newspaper reader i also read the comics...

i don't know why because they are rarely funny and mostly really dorky...

but today, oh my god it was like the comics gods were peering down and pointing their fingers right. at. me.

unfortunately, i will have to relate them to you in text as i don't know the first thing about linking or anything like that...

life in hell by matt groening (the little guys wearing fezs)

before this relationship goes any further, there are some scary things you should know about me...i'm cranky, mean, explosive, and erratic...

that's not scary.

i'm negative, sour, vicious, and vindictive...

that's not scary.

i'm paranoid, histrionic, self-obsessed, and delusional...

that's not scary.

but i promise i will never leave you...

AIEEEE!



guess which one is me.

and

baby blues by jerry scott & rick kirkman

mom and dad are in the kitchen talking

mom: zoe and hammie are over at keesha's house doing homework, so it's double-quiet around here.

dad: double-quiet?

mom: yeah. quiet because they're not making noise, and quiet because i'm not yelling at them for making noise.



can i tell you.

oh, another thing i was reading in the paper was a big article on math curriculum and standards different approaches to teaching etc. etc. etc..

in fact they had the same subject on the morning radio program i listen to, too...

i am decidedly math-phobic...but as a teacher i've had to really talk myself down from that ledge and rise to the occasion...it sucks and makes me break out into a sweat each time we come to a new concept but somehow the job gets done...(isn't your faith in me just bursting with that statement?)

so anyhow, back to the article, they were suggesting getting back to the basics...quit with all this conceptual *art* math and start doing drills again...

i'm not so into the drills...i figure you learn it then you keep going back to it here and there and explain why you'll need it in the future and you're good...like you don't just learn to add and subtract or to multiply and divide and that's that...no, you use addition and subtraction and multiplication and division in nearly every other arena when moving on in learning math...you learn it and then constantly use it from then on out...

but i see what they were saying...they are suggesting we should not only learn it, but drill it in...the national council of teachers of mathematics says that fourth graders should multiply whole numbers fluently and second graders should quickly recall the sum of two plus five...

so because i am human and apparently base a lot of my self worth in what my children can and cannot accomplish i did the following:

"hey wingman (kindergarten), what's two plus five?"

"um, um, um, 6! i mean 7!"

"hey duke (fourth grade) what's five times seven?"

"35"

booh-yah!

okay, so maybe i need to get a life but at least my kids can do math...

(and just as aside...i cannot stand when people drill my kids, especially the duke, because we homeschool...like a *test* to see if my child is the one getting left behind...it's really really annoying and rude and above all condescending...but *i* can do it because they lived inside my body for 9 months and like that's not really annoying and rude?)

anyhow, moving right along...we didn't have the green chile beef stew last night because the recipe suggested that it was much better made the day before and reheated...so we'll have it tonight instead of pizza for family movie night...

instead the lord of the ring got pho for us...i love pho...and for an ass backwards military hick town, we've got some really really good pho going on...

happy friday!

x.

p.s. if i ever say "booh-yah" again please shoot me.

and, is that even how it's spelled?

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