All posts by Brian

So it begins.

Imperfect 10

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Back when this all started, I was scared I’d not last a week. Somehow I did — though how, I’m still not quite sure — and then some.

Today begins Year 10.

I’d ask the Lord how many more of these I have left in me, if given the conversation.1 Best of wishes to all my fellow educators out there. The journey, folks, not just the destination.

  1. Yes, that might seriously be my first question. [↩]
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Hacking Streaming Service Royalties

Reading List

For those that are curious about how to hack royalty payments for streaming music services.123

And there’s a nice Statistics lesson on “average vs mean vs median”, to boot!

Medium: Streaming Music Is Ripping You Off

  1. I must have picked the wrong line of work! [↩]
  2. Incidentally, I would not shock me in the least if these “hacks” are broke by my next birthday… [↩]
  3. Actually I would be surprised if these “hacks” are still in play by the time September rolls around… [↩]
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More signs that the end is nigh

Maroon9

While I was cleaning things out in my classroom, my cabinet was open and my students could see that I, in fact, keep a change of clothes handy:

Sassy Student: Why do you have an extra shirt?
Me: [pausing to think of an eloquent response…] In case of a coffee accident.
Sassy Student: Really?
Me: Yeah. Would you take me seriously if I was trying to teach class with a big ole coffee stain on the front of my shirt?!
Sassy Student: Mr. Youn, I don’t take you seriously when…
Me: DON’T finish that sentence.

And file this one under “I’ll take it as a win”:

I had a couple of students go out of their way to get my favorite poison:1

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One of them explained:

“Every single math class before this one, I just cheated on every test. This is the first math class I didn’t do that in.”

:)

  1. Yes, at a thousand calories, it just about qualifies as a “poison”… [↩]
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Shark Attacks

Can't make this stuff up, Maroon9

A group of girls having a conversation near my desk this week, talking about horrible ways to die…1

(I’m paraphrasing heavily…)
Student #1: I wouldn’t want to go swimming there because then I’d get attacked by a shark and die!
Student #2: Okay, there are actually only an average of two deaths due to shark attacks per year.
Student #1: (Look of lightbulb suddenly turning on…) But there have already been two this year,2 so that means it’s safe for us now!
Me: (Turning to my right, slowly…) Have. You. Learned. NOTHING in this class this year?!?

:)

Hmmm…

conditional_risk

  1. Yes. They were talking about ways to die. It was weird, but to be honest, in all my years of having to listen to girls talk about weird things, this didn’t even crack the top 5 (don’t ask). [↩]
  2. I wasn’t paying close attention to the conversation up to this point so somewhere they must have established that there have been two fatal shark attacks this year thus far. :shrug: [↩]
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You Draw It: College Enrollment vs Family Income

Maroon9, Reading List

draw-your-own-chart-about-income-and-college-enrollment-1432757557397-master675-v3

Here’s a cool one from the NY Times:

The Upshot [NY Times]: How Family Income Affects Children’s College Chances1

You get to draw a line/curve on a graph,2 and then see how well you did versus the rest of the general population.

  1. Although I’m not quite sure how I feel about the use of the word “affects”… [↩]
  2. and yes, this appears to work on mobile devices just fine! [↩]
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