ESOL, SPED, Math, Science...

Oh, and I teach World History, too:


Student: "I don't consider myself black, because I don't have any baby daddy issues. I'm African. Asian people don't either."

Me: "Oh, that's because we get beaten back at home."

Student: "You guys get beat?!"

Me: "Have you never heard of North Korea?"

Student: "They beat people there?!"

Other student: "(jokingly) Haha, yeah, they send you to concentration camps!"

Me: "Yeah, they do."

Students: "THERE ARE CONCENTRATION CAMPS?! ISN'T THAT ILLEGAL?!"

Me: "...not in North Korea...?"

Student: "Well, I'm going to visit North Korea, then!"

Me: "You can't go there... They don't let foreigners in."

Students: "WHAT?! How they gonna tell me I can't go there?! I would bomb them."


Oh, just an average day in Pre-Calculus on a Friday.

Half Time is Over

"Okay, so you need 240% total to pass a course. So, let's say, for quarter 1, you got a 70%, for quarter 2, you got an 80%, and for quarter 3, you got a 70%. In order to pass the course, you just need at least a 20% fourth quarter. But let's say you got 10% for quarter 1, 20% for quarter 2, and 10% for quarter 3..."

"Yeah, that's what I got."

"...so you would need a 200% for quarter 4."

(no response)

"...which is impossible..."

(confused student look)

"...because grades are out of 100%?"

(look of sadness, but don't feel too bad for him, because he'll forget about it in ten minutes)

"But it's okay, because we're in quarter 3 now, so you don't have to get an impossible percent in your last quarter."

(look improved with some relief, but the reality is that this kid, like many of his peers, need to step it up by A LOT in order to repair quarter 1 and 2 damage.)


The magic of quarter three. Let's turn it around kids.