Sup Teach?

i was almost guilty of being like the teacher Mr.G blogged about in his last post, but i stopped myself.

a majority of my students were bombing their math diagnostics on fundamentals (adding, subtraction, multiplication, division) the first two weeks of class, despite being promoted from algebra into geometry.  i looked at their old grades and they all passed “algebra.”  initially i assumed, “damn it, their old teacher was passing them just to pass them along and get them out of her hair.”  however, i realized that during the summer a lot of information they learned last year was forgotten and replaced with things beyond their old teacher’s control.  i’m giving them the opportunity to review old material before moving into new concepts and it’s tough.  everyday for the past 3 weeks, i’ve had to juggle between “Mr. S, this stuff is way too _________ hard, ________!” and “this is stupidass baby work. why the ________ we doing this _________?! we did this ____ ______last year with such-and-such”  (feel free to mad-lib this with your own profanity, chances are, you’re right)

summer break is definitely a gift and a curse…a curse for classroom progress.  it’s like pressing reset on the old, memorycard-less Nintendo and having to start super mario bros. 1 all the way from the beginning before you can even think about messing with king koopa.

king koopa = the CAHSEE