Today I took Emily’s class at Btone. When we did torso twist, she excitedly referenced an old standby from Algebra 2: All Students Take Calculus to explain the boundaries for range of motion on the exercise (90 degrees from one’s nose to the mirror). Imagine that your nose is the origin. For facing the alley, that’s quadrant 1 (where all trig functions are positive) and for facing Newbury St, that’s quadrant 2, where sine is positive. I love that she incorporates fun explanations for clients. 🙂 20/30.
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bright spot in my heart
My frustrations with teaching and leadership often come from the amount of mental energy and worry I expend when concerned that folks won’t follow through. With Running Club, that happens when I worry that a) students won’t show up or b) the majority of the workout will be spent trying to coax those who are phoning it in or giving up. Today I have been so swamped with already taking a 6:00 a.m. Btone class, doing IB exam administration, proctoring MCAS, and dealing with various IB items that I did not have the energy to do the Running Club workout. I thought of canceling because my co-coach was out today,…
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Personal Project
Our Personal Project Showcase today went great. I love that we celebrate the pursuit of learning in this way, and am so proud of our students. One of our alumni was there and commented that she wished they’d gotten a chance to do Personal Projects as 10th graders. 18/30.
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when the teaching and fitness analogies fall apart
A few years ago, I eschewed marathon training in favor of HIIT, tabata, and other forms of interval training. I wish teaching was more like marathon training. 17/30.
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halfway
Halfway through the MtBos30 and halfway through IB exams. I miss teaching. 15/30.
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just do it
It’s been so long since I was in half-marathon shape that I always assume that I’m not in it. Today I decided to check if I could do 9 miles. After I finished the first mile through Teele Square and along Rt. 16, that old running groove came back. It felt so nice to be back out there and to have broken through that mental block of “you can’t do it.” 14/30.
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theatre
Last night I went to go see our school’s spring theatre show (two one-act plays). It’s awesome to see how our school celebrates the arts rather than pushing them aside to prep for better MCAS scores or rankings in U.S. News & World Report. It makes me think that I probably won’t even look at that type of ranking when picking a school for my own child. I love that one theatre teacher posed a math problem to the audience afterward: can you guess how many individually painted blue squares there were in The Girl Who Refused to Turn Blue? 13/30.
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teacher appreciation
Made these for fellow teachers today. 12/30.
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the manshower
My fiance’s work did a wedding party (or “manshower”) for us tonight. Part of it was a Trivial Pursuit game in which each table had to come up with answers to trivia questions about us. We found the trivia worksheets scattered on the tables afterwards. Here are a few: Geography – What town was he born in? Ethan wasn’t born, he was gifted to the world – How old was Ethan the first time he left New Hampshire? Trick question, he hasn’t left. History – What would Ethan’s name have been if he had been born female? Surprisingly, the same. – What were his first words? So can you get…
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car buying
Tardy to the party today…will post again in the evening. Talked to a coworker about buying cars yesterday. He expressed a lot of frustration with the way dealers manipulate financing to make more money off you: 1) making low offers for trade-in (or increasing sticker price of the car with a trade-in) 2) changing the APR 3) changing the length of the loan 4) upselling expensive cars Could be a good real-world problem for financial math, especially since some 12th graders are interested in saving up for cars. 11/30.