Obviously, today lesson plan is just like yesterday's, so there not much to say there. And once again, today's song is "The Big March," which completes the first week of the title stretch.
Today is Sixday on the Eleven Calendar:
Resolution #6: We ask, what would our heroes do?
There isn't much opportunity to discuss the 1955 heroes today. But there is something that does occur today that's indirectly related to the heroic attitude.
Some students complain about the weather today -- specifically, that it's too "hot." At the time of the complaints, the actual temperature was a comfortable 72 degrees -- yet some students claim that it's too hot for them to do any athletic activities during the hour-and-50-minute-block.
I suspect that if it were just a few degrees lower, students would complain that it was too cold for them to do P.E. today! Indeed, there were some students three years ago at the old charter school who regularly complained that the temperature was too hot or too cold -- it was never "just right." This is despite living here in Southern California, where the temperature is "just right" more than half of all days on the calendar.
Of course, suppose we were to offer these students a trip to Disneyland -- or even something simpler, such as letting them use phones at school all day -- but only if the temperature is "just right." Then suddenly, the temperature would be "just right" even if were 42 or 102 degrees today. In other words, what's "too hot" for P.E. is suddenly "just right" for Disneyland. In words, they don't consistently round the temperature up or down, but always in the direction of the more enjoyable activity.
This also leads to the ninth resolution on valuing every second of class time. Yesterday, some third period students were trying to get me to release them before the dismissal bell by showing me that it was already 2:55 on their phones. In this district, all bells consistently ring about 30-50 seconds later than atomic time. But I make them wait until the bell actually rings.
This happens often on days that I sub, but today's the first time that I do something about it. You see, at this school third period is the same as homeroom, and so even though third period doesn't meet today, homeroom does. Most of the students are on time, but two students are late. When one girl arrives, I tell her that even though she thinks she's "on time," it's already 8:15 on my phone, and so she's tardy.
Of course, she complains -- but I was using her own logic against here. Yesterday the students wanted me to treat a dismissal bell that hasn't rung yet as having rung if their clock says so, but they don't want me apply that same logic to tardy bells. In other words, to the question "Should I go by atomic time or bell time," their belief is to go by the faster time if it's a dismissal bell, but the slower time if it's a tardy bell. Thus it's just like the temperature -- they don't consistently round the time forward or backward, but always in the direction of the more enjoyable activity.
As it turns out, no one actually arrives between 8:15:00 atomic time and the tardy bell. This girl actually arrives after the tardy bell -- her excuse isn't that the bell hasn't rung yet, but that I haven't taken attendance yet! Technically, this excuse often works with me as a sub -- I don't know the name of the kid walking in late, and so I can't mark anyone late unless I've taken roll and the students arrive after I've marked them absent. But since this homeroom is P.E. and the student are standing on P.E. numbers, I easily figure out whom to mark tardy. Even though she's after the bell (and by now it's likely 8:16 atomic time), I say it's 8:15 anyway for the sake of parallelism to yesterday's dismissal.
(As for the other tardy girl, she barely arrives before the homeroom dismissal bell, and so there's no easy excuse for her to claim she's not late.)
But there's no easy trick to solve the temperature problem. Unlike the bell schedule where there's a definite length of class time, there's no definition of "just right temperature." Students can claim that their temperature interval "just right for P.E." is a single degree -- anything above or below that degree is too hot or cold.
And so all the P.E. subs must continuously look for students who are sitting down because it's "too hot" instead of participating in an activity. And unlike with the tardy bells, these students are sitting on the field, nowhere near their numbers -- so there's no way to get their names. It appears that most of the students who fail to participate are eighth graders, so none of them are in any of the P.E. 7 classes that I cover today.
(It's funny how all bad behavior is often confined to a single grade -- and it's not always the same grade each time. Earlier this week, the issues in music classes were with seventh graders.)
And this takes us full circle back to heroes and the sixth resolution. If professional athletes (the heroes most relevant to a P.E. class) have a two-hour practice, then they practice for two hours. They don't round off the time to make the workout shorter than two hours, nor do they round off the temperature so that it's always too hot or cold to practice.
If you recall from my January 31st post, this teacher also has sixth period off (to make up for having a zero period). And so my day basically ends at lunch. I stay on campus while waiting to find out whether I need to cover another class -- just long enough to sing "The Big March" to the P.E. classes at the start of sixth period. Unlike yesterday, today after lunch it's cooled slightly -- clouds have come in (and by the time I complete today's blog post, it's actually started to rain a little).
Lesson 11-6 of the U of Chicago text is called "Three-Dimensional Coordinates." In the modern Third Edition of the text, three-dimensional coordinates appear in Lesson 11-9.
Today is an activity day. I've decided to keep that activity from a few years ago and add a new Lesson 11-6 worksheet.
Today's "Luck O' the Irish" actually fits in Chapter 11 on coordinate geometry, albeit in only two rather than three dimensions. If you wish, you can pretend parts of the graphs are in different planes and make it into a 3D lesson.
Ordinarily I don't post copyrighted material. But Cartesian Cartoons are so easy to find online that I see no harm in posting yet another copy of it. (And besides, I've posted some of them before during years past.)
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