I went to observe a freshman science classroom today. It was fantastic, I hope that one day I will have a class something like this. One thing that caught my eye was one of those cheesy posters that teachers put up on the wall. This one was sort of a mind teaser, you can find the original here True Colors from Mindware . Anyway I've recreated the poster here. What your supposed to do is say the name of the color of each word out loud as fast as you can. I've tried it, and its not very ...

So, as I stated previously , I am currently student teaching. One of my major hurdles to over come between now and May will be motivation. To put it simply, the students have none. I have see more motivation on soldiers that were detailed to sort trash after 30 days in the field at JRTC. I would like to share a short story to demonstrate what I'm dealing with. John was a student in my 5th Period Algebra class. This was John's 3rd time taking algebra. He failed it his freshman year, he f...

When I was stationed in in Korea the first time, getting home was a bit of a pain in the butt. You had to take an hour long bus ride that cost about $1.50 and then take a cab for 20-30 min that cost $20-$30. The times are all, of course, in relatively decent traffic, which Seoul is not known for. When I went back to Korea the second time I was happy to find out that the Seoul subway system had been extended so that it ran directly to Kimpo airport. This would be extremely convienient becau...

As stated before, motivation is a key issue in the classes I'm teaching, or at least the lack of motivation. What I'm tired of is people telling me that it is my fault that the students aren't motivated, that it is the teacher's responsibility that the students aren't motivated. This is really a bunch of crap. I understand that a teacher must try to present the material in a way that is both relevant and interesting to a student, but if the students really could not care less, what is a ...

So I'm taking my last math class before I graduate. It's called Real Analysis, and believe me its not nearly as cool as it sounds! So today we are looking at open and closed intervals and open and closed sets. (0,1) is an open set and [0,1] is a closed set (If you would like me to explain exactly why they are either closed or open I will later). Now some sets such as O (the empty set) and R (the set of all real numbers) that are both closed and open (again, if you would like me ...

Austin has a very large transiant population. On pretty much every street corner in Austin there is someone begging for money. While I'm stopped at red lights I have nothing better to do than to read there signs "Disabled Vietam Vet" "Homeless, anything helps" "Single Mother Trying to Surive" "Help support Austin's Fire Department" "LBJ High School Cheerleading, please donate!" Hold, it... WTF?! Did I read those last two correct??? Don't I pay taxes for the freakin Fire Depa...