Today is Day 131. Last year, Day 131 was the final day that students attended class in person. Little did I know at the time that I wouldn't see students in the classroom until October 6th, during my long-term assignment at a middle school.
It's only fitting then that this year, I return to that very same school. It's for an English class. Thus it's definitely worth doing "A Day in the Life" today.
8:45 -- First period arrives. This is the first of two sixth grade classes.
Like yesterday, the students in all classes have assignments on a single website -- Common Lit. I'm not familiar with this website, likely because only English teachers use this "lit" website. The students are to read a short story, make specific annotations, and answer questions.
Of course I sing a song to this class -- and I choose one that I haven't performed at this school yet (even though these are sixth graders who haven't heard any of my songs yet). It's "Earth, Moon, and Sun" -- a great tune to sing ahead of the spring equinox coming up this weekend.
(No, I don't keep trying to celebrate the other mid-March holidays that have already passed, even though I could have easily justified it by saying, hey, I didn't get to celebrate the March holidays with my long-term students! This time, I restrain myself and focus only on the first day of spring rather than holidays that are already over.)
9:40 -- First period leaves and second period arrives. This is the first of three eighth grade classes.
This class is about to read a new novel, Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. First, I must take them to the library to pick up copies of the novel. Again, at middle schools in this district, Cohort A meets on Tuesday/Thursday and Cohort B on Wednesday/Friday. While Cohort B kids can pick up their copies of the novel tomorrow, I don't know when those who opt of hybrid can get their novels.
After the students return, it's back to Common Lit. This time, they read an informational article about the Great Depression -- the period when their novel takes place.
In this class and all the English 8 classes I see today, I recognize students from my long-term. This is my second visit to this school since the end of that long-term -- and since my first visit was on a Wednesday (a Cohort B day), this is the first time I've seen Cohort A kids since the long-term.
It's interesting how I learn things about these students today that I never knew during the three-plus months that I taught them. Do you remember the girl who was applying to a local Catholic school and needed a letter of recommendation from me? (No, she still doesn't know whether she got in or not.) I notice that she has the same last name as another guy in the class, and so I ask her whether the two of them are twins. She replies no, they aren't twins -- they're triplets! The third sibling, a girl, also has this teacher for English later in the day.
I sing "Earth, Moon, and Sun" for this class as well.
10:35 -- It is time for tutorial. Recall that at this school, tutorial is assigned to a different period that changes each week. For this week, tutorial is assigned to third period. This is the second of three eighth grade classes.
As I usually do for tutorial, I sing songs the entire time. I begin with one that I posted on the blog about a year ago at the start of the pandemic, but never performed until now -- "You Gotta Believe," from the old TV show Ghostwriter (a contemporary of Square One TV).
Then I see two of my students from the long-term. Both of them are working on their math assignment during tutorial -- and it's on angle properties (parallel lines, etc.). And so my next song is a Square One TV song, "Angle Dance." I let them choose the last two songs, and they choose "Diagrams" and "Show Me the Numbers" -- both from the old charter school. I'm still working on replacing these tunes with new ones based on EDL scales.
11:05 -- The eighth graders leave for snack break.
11:15 -- The eighth graders return for third period proper. Even though they've already heard several songs during tutorial, I add "Earth, Moon, and Sun" for them too.
12:10 -- Third period leaves and fourth period arrives. This is the last of three eighth grade classes.
Of the three English 8 classes, this class has the most students I recognize from the long-term, especially when counting those who are online today. One of the in-person students is a girl who had opted out of hybrid during my long-term but has opted back in since -- and so it was the first time I'd seen what she looks like. (Recall that the "cameras on" rule didn't start until after the long-term ended.)
1:05 -- Fourth period leaves for lunch.
1:40 -- Fifth period arrives. This is the second of two sixth grade classes.
The regular teacher warns me that there are some troublemaking boys in this class -- and this reminds me of some of the troublemaking girls from yesterday's Grade 6 Period 5 class (the same grade level meeting at the same time of day).
This time, I'm ready for them. Some boys start playing around as they enter the classroom, and I have them log into Canvas right away while I take attendance for the online students. This seems to work -- until they start applauding, ostensibly for my "Earth, Moon, and Sun" song but then just to play around by clapping each other. I tell them to stop, after which they're quiet the rest of the period.
2:35 -- Fifth period leaves, thus completing my day. (Sixth period is P.E. independent study.)
Today is Sevenday on the Eleven Calendar:
Resolution #7: We sing to help us learn math.
And I sing in spades today, especially during tutorial. Notice that both "You Gotta Believe" and "Show Me the Numbers" remind us of the other resolutions that help guide students to success. Recall that "You Gotta Believe" is all about believing in oneself (perseverance) -- and I added an extra verse about perseverance in the classroom. And the numbers in "Show Me the Numbers" count out these ten resolutions that lead students become more successful at schoo.
In the U of Chicago text, today we go directly from Lesson 12-10 to Lesson 13-1. This is the pattern I followed back in 2018 and 2019 on the blog -- in all other years, there were irregularities, and so I didn't make a clean transition from 12-10 to 13-1 in those years.
As usual, my new pandemic-friendly activity will be posted tomorrow.
This lesson focuses on mathematical logic, which ultimately helps the students write proofs. I mentioned earlier that the Law of Detachment is often known by its Latin name, modus ponens. In fact, I pointed out that on the Metamath website -- a website full of mathematical proofs -- modus ponens is one of the most used justifications:
http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/ax-mp.html
Notice that I only mention the Metamath website for general information. This website is definitely not suitable for use in a high school math classroom. At Metamath, even a simple proof like that of 2+2=4 is very complex:
http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/2p2e4.html
In fact, believe it or not the proof was once even more complicated because it tried to use pure set theory to prove that 2+2=4, and then later on more axioms (postulates) were added to make the proofs easier -- similar to the postulates for real numbers mentioned in Lesson 1-7. To repeat, the basic idea is that one makes a proof simpler by adding more axioms/postulates.
This is when students often ask, "Why do we have to learn proofs?" Of course, they ask because proofs are perhaps the most difficult part of a geometry course. The answer is that even though mathematical proofs may not be important per se -- but proofs are. Many fields, from law to medicine, depend on proving things. We don't want to guess that a certain person is guilty or that taking a certain medicine is effective -- we want to prove it. For centuries, the dominant way to learn how logical arguments work was to read Euclid. Let's learn about how Honest Abe learned about logical arguments from Euclid:
http://the-american-catholic.com/2012/08/16/lincoln-and-euclid/
Unfortunately, the above link is a political and religious website. Well, I suppose it's impossible to avoid politics when discussing Lincoln, but the webpage is also a Catholic site.
Last year, we read Eugenia Cheng's third book, which is all about logic. Thus some ideas from Cheng's book are explored in this chapter.
Today is an activity day. The Exploration questions for Lesson 13-1 are based on a famous puzzle called "Who Owns the Zebra?" I decided to include a description of the puzzle -- but instead of typing it in by hand, I cut-and-paste from the following link:
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/2017/08/16/who-owns-the-zebra/
As the U of Chicago text notes, "This puzzle dates from the 1950's, before the dangers of smoking were widely recognized." By now, of course, we understand the perils of smoking. And so the U of Michigan link above replaces "the Old Gold smoker" with "the aerobic exerciser."
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