Welcome to 201

Time has been flying by lately, yet going so slow at the same time.  When I moved to Arizona multiple people told me to keep a blog about what's going on in the life of a high school math teacher.  I haven't really had a chance to breathe since school started, but I'm attempting to be better, starting....now.

First game of the season.  Go Wolverines!  We actually won!

Friday was the end of the third week of school!  Fifteen days down, 165 to go, but who's counting?  I hear its supposed to get a little easier and more routine by October or at the very least the end of the first semester (does that mean I have to wait until Christmas to feel like I know what I'm doing!?)  Some days are bad - really bad.  Others are just bad, but for the most part it's good.  The best part of my day is when I'm up there teaching those little kiddos.  By little kiddos I mean high school freshman and juniors.  There were two pieces of advice that I was told over and over going into my first year of teaching:  "Don't try to be someone you're not," and "fake it till you make it."  Those two bits were mixed in with a bunch of other advice like, "you can smile before Christmas, but don't smile in the first month," "make someone cry in every class during your first week," "you have to keep notebooks," "don't start teaching content until the second week," "teach content on the first day."  So much advice!  I want to go back to the best piece of advice I was given - "Don't try to be someone you're not."  It's not my style to not smile or to make someone cry.  I felt like I finally showed Liz and who she really is on Friday and it was the best day of teaching I've had so far.  Kids actually left my class saying they really enjoyed math that day and were looking forward to the semester.  Whoa!

Now on to a little bit of the fun and joys of teaching high school students.  Third period has been my toughest class so far.  Two boys specifically have made this class a challenge.  One of them changes his opinion of me constantly.  He walks in shaking my hand, telling me about his day, all smiles and laughter.  By the middle of class he's telling me he hates math and he hates my class and he's never coming back.  By the end he walks out practically skipping and saying, "bye Ms. Sansom.  Have a great day."  On Tuesday I was crouched down at a students desk helping her with a problem.  I turned around to see this student standing up in his boxers with his basketball shorts around his ankles.  "What are you doing!?  Pull up your pants NOW!"  I held him and the other trouble student back to talk about the de-pantzing situation.  Their responses were "why would I pull down my own pants," and "why would I pull down his pants?  I like girls."  That was fun....

More to come with the joys of teaching high school!

He might not like math and might pull his pants down in the middle of class, but on the bright side my student makes a mean origami bird.