(Disclaimer #1: This post has nothing to do with my teaching life.)

When Apple announced the Gold iPhone two weeks ago, I immediately thought, “Sony!”

(Disclaimer #2: The rest of this post is going to date me somewhat. Not quite so much as 8-tracks, but… something like.)

Here is the last piece of consumer electronics that I owned in gold:

Back in a previous life, I used to do some consumer electronics reviews for Minidisc units — this was back when Minidiscs kinda sorta used to matter (which is basically before the iPod came out and flash/HD-based mp3 players took over the market).

In 20041, Sony released their flagship model portable MD recorder, the MZ-NH1, and one of the two color options was Champagne Gold. 2 I had to pull this sucker out from the depths of my storage, but it’s still kickin’ — I was still using it to record bootlegs as recently as 2008.

For a brief few years, these things were slick – miniature re-writable optical disks encased in protective cartridges that carried 74 minutes of music — back when we actually measured our music in minutes and seconds, as opposed to megabytes and gigabytes.3

I remember back then, me and friends would ogle at the mere fantasy of a single all-in-one device that could function as a phone and music device and camera and… you know, not actually suck. We opined that the consumer electronics companies would NEVER let it happen4.

Turns out we weren’t that far off.

1. if memory serves me right [↩]
2. I’ve always suspected that Apple has some former Sony electronics aficionados in their design ranks… [↩]
3. Sony finally tried modernizing their MiniDisc line by allowing storage of mp3’s on their disks, and increased the capacity up to 1GB. [↩]
4. since it would probably cannibalize product sales [↩]

Don’t you hate it when you speak too soon?

Last time, I wrote:

This is about the time of year when I feel like the students start to break out of their slightly nervous, semi-tentative, “not-sure-how-you-want-me-to-behave-in-here” shells, and begin to open up and start to feel comfortable with you as a teacher.

Specifically, I wrote that that was a good thing – that the students start to feel comfortable with you and begin to open up.

Well. There’s also a downside to that:

The students start to feel comfortable with you and begin to open up.

In particular, this past Friday and today kinda sorta somewhat made me want to pull my hair out. Like… maybe you sometimes liked it better when everyone was in that “shy” phase. -_-

I’m gonna blame the change in weather.1

So… I tell my students that in Statistics, we sometimes have to discuss generalizations and stereotypes.

One of my favorite activities in AP Stat is “Rent-a-date”,2 which we did this past block on Friday/Monday.

Students are given $22 to spend on an “ideal mate”. 3

Kids are then given sticky-notes with which they head to the whiteboard, which has a list of qualities along a ready-made horizontal axis, and stick their notes to mark their desired qualities.4 Girls and guys get different colors so that we can see the contrast. Here are a couple of pics that demonstrate what we’d pretty much expect (I won’t need to tell you which colors represent which genders):

Yes, guys usually spring for “Attractive body”, “Hot”, and “Good-looking face”,5 while the girls want stuff like “Goal-oriented”, “Sense of Humor”, and — of course — “Tall”.6 Very few kids — guys OR girls — care much for “Popular”.7 8

One of the things I find most amusing: Girls don’t always want to shell out money for things like “romantic” or “well-mannered”, and in almost every class, you can hear the girls saying stuff like,

We don’t need to pay for those things — we can train them later.”9

Mmmm hmmm. -_-10

1. which, by the way, has been gorgeous. [↩]
2. I borrowed this activity from Penny Smeltzer over at WWHS, by the way – it was not my concoction. [↩]
3. We have to throw out the disclaimer that we are talking about qualities that we would find desirable in a long-term relationship, and not just a cheap one-time fling. That always draws some groans of disapproval. -_- [↩]
4. By the way, in four years of doing this activity, I think this is the first year in which a few kids have quipped — mostly jokingly — “this isn’t school appropriate!” But then they usually just go along with it cuz… well… it’s all in good fun. [↩]
5. I know — SHOCK. [↩]
6. Double SHOCK. [↩]
7. This is actually somewhat reassuring. [↩]
8. Here’s a funny footnote: I noted that in one of my classes, we had a LOT of sticky notes — both genders — for “Intelligent”. A student quipped: “Dude, almost everyone in this class is either Indian or Asian.” LOL! [↩]
9. To which, the guys usually look around the room, befuddled, as if to say, “what ARE we, dogs?!” [↩]
10. Oh, by the way, the point of “Rent-a-date” — YES, there IS a point to this superficial ridiculosity — is to discuss side-by-side bar graphs, and to discuss proper — and improper — ways of describing a graphical display of qualitative data. Specifically: Don’t describe center / shape / spread with categorical data. But really we just do this because it’s fun. [↩]

For most of the day I was caught simultaneously between thoughts of:

Wow, I can’t believe we’re already in week 4

and

OMG, I can’t believe it’s ONLY week 4

I wrote that on the Friday of Open House week two years ago. I generally feel this way every year at the end of Open House week (which was last week). 1

Usually, that is the longest week of the year, bar none.

But for some reason, this week totally kicked last week’s butt. And that scares me a little. 2 3

But while this week has been crazy long, it has been a good one.4

This is about the time of year when I feel like the students start to break out of their slightly nervous, semi-tentative, “not-sure-how-you-want-me-to-behave-in-here” shells, and begin to open up and start to feel comfortable with you as a teacher.

There was a moment during the week that, after finishing up for the day, I took a deep breath, and thought to myself, “Things are really starting to go well.” 5

Still though… this week needs to come to an end — quickly.

1. Maybe it has more to do with it being the fourth week. Maybe it has nothing to do with Open House. But I’m pretty sure it does. [↩]
2. I’m not sure that next is going to be better. And that scares me as well. [↩]
3. Hence the title of this blog post, which is the title of a Rascal Flatts song that I like a lot. But it’s a depressing song, so don’t listen to it unless you’ve braced yourself for a depressing country song. [↩]
4. Truth be told, every week has been a good one. And I’m thankful for that. [↩]
5. There have actually been a number of days thus far where I have thought to myself, “This was a good day. This is why I do what I do.” These first 4 weeks have certainly been special. [↩]

Every single school year, from mid-September through mid-October. 1

This is when you start seeing empty chairs, explained away by the choruses of “there’s something going around.”2

Every single year, this is literally the only time of the year that I fear missing work due to illness. 3

The consistency of the timing from year-to-year is fascinating, if you think about it much. 4

1. knock on wood [↩]
2. Knock on wood. [↩]
3. Knock on wood. [↩]
4. KNOCK ON WOOD. [↩]

Every once in a blue moon, I actually get to leave work before 5pm.

It doesn’t happen often.1

But when it does, oh man, it’s like the skies opening up, with swaths of light beaming down along with a heavenly chorus.

Today I introduced my students to “How Do You Feel Today”.2 Last year, I didn’t get to do these until week #7, but it was a slow morning, and I think this Monday demanded it.

I originally got this from my 11th grade English teacher3 and have since passed them on to every single one of my classes. They have nothing to do with math, but every now and then we need a nice distraction — even if only for a moment.

1. I’ll bet I can count the number of times all year on my two hands… keep in mind we work ~187 days or so. [↩]
2. I ask students to get out a half-sheet of paper, then pick a face that describes how they are feeling, and write 2 or 3 sentences explaining why. Hey, we’re trying to emphasize writing as a campus, so this year it almost actually fits! [↩]
3. who was probably my favorite of all of my high school teachers. Yes, my favorite high school teacher was an English teacher, not a math teacher. [↩]

Even in year 4 of teaching a class, sometimes I decide to scrap and revamp an entire lesson and homework assignment… at 10pm the night before that class.1

Just because something ain’t broke doesn’t mean it’s as good as it could be.2

On that topic: Last year was my 3rd of teaching AP Stat, and while there were about a half-dozen names with which I considered entitling it,3 I aptly settled on the following:

1. while watching Sunday Night Football and Breaking Bad, of course. [↩]
2. interestingly… while inserting the above image, I noticed a typo on the worksheet on the right =/ [↩]
3. one of the other names I considered for Season 3 of AP Stat is the title of this blog post [↩]