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August 28, 2002
My friend Michael Lopez pointed
My friend Michael Lopez pointed out a great site called www.nextdraft.com. I was so impressed I subscribed, and will probably begin using it as one of my primary sources for news. It has an interesting take on the news, plus a great reference to teaching in Brooklyn in the link above. Since I start in just a week, it was especially amusing to me. I think that teachers of math are simply misunderstood. We joke all the time, it is simply that no one else finds us funny.
This is another article from this site.
First Daze
Yesterday afternoon I called my friend Andy who had just completed his first day of his third year as a math teacher. Since I wrote about first days of school for students in yesterday's column, I figured I'd call and check how the first day was for someone who should really be nervous. A teacher.
When I was teaching high school in Boston and New York, I found out very quickly that whatever nerves a kid had on those first days was wildly overshadowed by gurgling stomach of the teacher. Will they listen this year? Will I remember the names? Can I avoid humiliation for five long periods?
Of course when I called Andy, his response was ho-hum. No, he hadn't been nervous. And yes, while the first day is always tiring, it hadn't really been stressful. He knows his stuff at this point and unlike the rest of the teachers on his floor, he just went ahead and taught a lesson and skipped all of the introductory pleasantries. In other words, Andy is a Math teacher. So for the record, let's exclude Math teachers from any connection with the following columns and instead include only those with normal sets of human emotions.
Posted by G at August 28, 2002 06:01 PM