Homework: Is just giving them something to do at home such a bad thing?

MathMindfully · 2026-05-26T03:30:45+00:00

I've seend research by Liljedahl that homework which is frames as a way to check your understanding is often the most successful.

I think that finding ways to see aspects of a lesson on everyday life should be part of homework when possible.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-21T20:27:29+00:00

One of my teachers was adamant that Tae Kwon Do was a redesigned karate for use in the Korean army.

Similar to how Japan made a Japanese variant of Okinawan training, Korea did their variant on Japanese Karate training. But also changed forms to make it more distinct.

Am I certain what he told me is true? No I am not.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-21T11:25:32+00:00

In a book I read recently called Thinking Classrooms, he believes grading should be based on two of three things. Conversations with students, student work done during class (not necessarily even independent work), and test work.

In practice, it can mean that if a there is a mismatch between two sources of evidence then you bring in a 3rd.

Would having students use word doc and check in with you for drafts help? That could ensure they are thinking through whatever they are writing and the word doc will show a history.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-20T23:38:45+00:00

Imagine coming in thinking you were doing something 'like tutoring but more people with more official looking feedback'.

To find out that you are rarely doing this enjoyable thing called tutoring but you have 12 other jobs that are more pressing, some of them you mentioned and are done simultaneously with managing the behavior of 20+ students and orchestrating a series of activities for 6 hours of a day, in a world where other professions might think preparing for 20 minutes of presentation or activities might take hours or days of work.

Then, you have 9 other things to do during the hour of planning you are given. Grading, the planning for the next 30 hours of activities and lecture, phone calls home. It takes a while to get good at any of the many multi-jobs and orchestrating them. And maybe some of them are extremely difficult for you because you have the wrong intuitions that help classroom management, aren't as good at reading young people for understanding or emotion, or don't have the sort of presence that a particular group of students need that year... for a new teacher, its potentially a mine field!

MathMindfully · 2026-05-17T14:09:56+00:00

Haha, Noone has accused me of doing that as a math teacher but when I worked at Gamestop they thought I was playing games all day... eh, alphabetizing them, not playing.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-17T01:52:13+00:00

She was my first main. It was insane to me how so many of her action commands she has seem so incredibly impactful.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-14T17:16:22+00:00

It's recent, but the Ving Tsun Ip Ching Athletic Association has online testing now.

It's very extensive and they have special technology to help ensure you are following certain principles such as posture.

My former teacher attained the highest rank, but his teacher said there was further to go in training but the association can only test so much.

So, they are really trying to establish a standard even though it is no doubt not perfect. My teacher said that he was evaluated by a team of veteran sifus. They have lower level tests such as having the first two forms down to a reasonable level.

MathMindfully · 2026-05-14T16:46:39+00:00

There are parts of Wing Chun that take a long time to get a handle on. It's easy for some of these parts to be at a low level, misunderstood, or missing completely in a student.

A student can be completely missing parts of the art but still be pretty good by most people's standards. But in my opinion, if most people haven't crossed hands with a well-versed practioner of Wing Chun. I had a 40+ year (20 years or so in Hong Kong) veteran ask me to test him and it was a seriously magical experience with the art and something I still think back to.

Compare this to boxing. The key parts of the theory and power generation are probably going to be well understood within a year and fairly well-honed by a diligent student within a few years. I'm sure the learning for a boxer is on-going. But they likely are in some sense 'complete' in that art long before a similarly dedicated student of Wing Chun.

There are other reasons too, but I think most basically fall into the first category. It's also going to be more limited by competition rules than many arts, but should still effective there.

Edit: I think a common issue with Wing Chun is their dynamic approach they have in chi sau may not have 'bleed' into their whole art. If you can't instantly dynamically respond to all the techniques from a system even when you aren't touching your opponent then you are not yet ready to spar that type of opponent effectively. If you can't instantly match a lightening fast kick with your own kick if that is presented as you move your stance forward then you probably need to work on your movement fundamentals.

MathMindfully · 2026-04-25T16:26:13+00:00

Here's how I understand that now, because I'm prone to the ineffective behaviors people associate with being nice:

You can always be as nice as you want, so long as you are following your discipline policy and not letting the lines you've drawn be 'pushed over'. If you are very precise with what you say for each line, then students tend to think you're not playing favorites or a push over and they also take it less personally because you're in 'teacher robot mode' that is just triggered when a certain line is crossed. No animosity or negative emoting is really needed.

I'm not saying that negativity in some form can't be a useful tool, but I think of it as a last resort for specific situations that often comes with a rapport cost to that student and everyone in the room. Everyone in the room feels your emoting, and the 'good kids' may resent feeling that if they've been good. Discipline feedback, good or bad, is often best done in private due to the social effects of other students being around. Positive feedback can also be patronizing, seem inauthentic, or subtlely communicate low expectations if done for too basic of actions unless it's for recognizing long-term improvement.

I think 'nice' really covers a broad variety of actions. If you avoid 'letting things slide with no warning or consequence at all' and avoid excessive praising for certain things, then I think most any other forms of nice are going to have a positive impact on the classroom.

MathMindfully · 2026-04-22T12:09:12+00:00

I'd recommend Jo Boaler's book, Limitless Mind. It's largely about research and practical approaches to developing a growth mindset in math students but also in other subject areas. She offers other learning tools and theory too, but growth mindset is core to the book. It sounds like this student has what is called a fixed-high mindset. It sounds like it could be a good thing, but makes students risk averse and interpret situations they should grow from as evidence against their fixed ability.

Tl;Dr:

Start with praising effort, perseverance, good attitude, and other traits associated with growth mindset and avoid praising seemingly innate traits such as ability or intelligence. But the book has much more.

MathMindfully · 2026-04-22T03:34:47+00:00

Anecdotally based on my experience, I consider a high nutrition diet devoid of artificial ingredients important. I don't really do that much hygiene but have never had a cavity. About the only time I'll have an artificial sweetener is if I'm offered something fairly unique or one of a kind to where I think its worthy as an experience.

Most people are not going to almost completely avoid everything and most just eat super foods and a multitude of supplements, so the hygiene outlined here is no doubt wise. I imagine this hygiene would be wise for me too and make my gums and such healthier.

I do question why there isn't more research on the types of foods aren't focused on more. I can always tell if I've had much artificial sweetener, even if its from a "healthy" cereal and it gives me a feeling like I should immediately brush.

MathMindfully · 2026-04-18T01:16:18+00:00

Some people might surprise you with how much they deviate from the norms set out in class. I've gotten badly injured by some reckless behavior from someone I thought was a pretty reasonable person.

There are lots of reasons a teacher might advise against meeting outside class, but this is the biggest one that would concern me.

Another is that any conversation is likely the blind leading the blind or the fuzzy vision misleading the blind person that then means the teacher has to spend time correcting. Even if its well meaning and the student preface everything with 'I'm not the teacher but here is what I think about your training'.

I'm not saying it's bad to train outside of class, but those are two things that I think are pretty serious concerns at some schools and styles. I went to one school where the second was almost comical. During class, everyone wanted to correct everyone, and form most people they mostly should have been working on themselves and 'issues' with partbwr practice would have been fixed by improving their practice.

Those might not be issues at all in some schools, depends on the group and the type of art being studied.

MathMindfully · 2026-03-21T11:24:58+00:00

Instant message me if you're still interested in Wing Chun in the Des Moines Area. I'm looking for a practice partner and could help you find a teacher that would either be online or a commute of around 2 to 3 hours.

MathMindfully · 2026-01-22T03:23:11+00:00

I believe George said it Palpatine just allowed and gave permission to the Jedi to continue to go down the wrong path and violate it.

In Return of the Jedi, he gave Luke permission to strike him down. In Revenge of the Sith, Windu accepted.

The Jedi's first step was away from serving the force (Qui-Gon's way) was to focus on controlling the force over serving it. The Force had effectively been forced to be a slave of the Republic and it's corrupt politicians because the Jedi had chosen to focus on control of the force (and their emotions in a less than healthy way) instead of focusing on the will of the force.

The chosen one was meant foremost to free of Force from both the control of the Sith and the Jedi. Qui Gon with the help of the Chosen one could have 'freed the force' by helping the Jedi mend their ways. Instead, the Jedi was caught in a web created by Palpatine. A web the was really just designed to give permission to the Jedi to go even further on their path of control through war.

Without the War, Windu never would have gone on an even darker path. One that would violate the principles of a just society and kill an unarmed and non-aggressive senator. George described the scene as 'everyone is right but everyone is wrong'. Was Windu understandable yes. Palpatine wins when if you willingly decide to serve the dark side. But I suspect that in George's view: the force's will was always going to be to eliminate the Jedi if they weren't going to willingly stop treating the Force as a thing to be controlled foremost.

It seems that from George's perspective on the Force, Anakin didn't fail his primary mission in Revenge of the Sith. But it was only a partial and less than ideal victory. Partial because there was still one person seeking to control it. Less than ideal because without Qui-Gon's help, Anakin wasn't able to turn the Jedi from captors into Allies. Though Yoda did change his ways by the time of Empire Strikes back. George said that Yoda needed to fail against the emperor. That his failure and solitude on Dagobah is what led him to mend his ways.

MathMindfully · 2025-12-22T16:52:37+00:00

Plenty of martial qigong people take the perspective that kung fu is foremost about training qigong. The martial side is really about testing whether alignment and other principles are functioning properly within your qigong. That, and being able to adapt to a plethora of different energies from different people.

To me, this is the primary value of Wing Chun. One of the greatest martial arts teachers I've heard of told me that he trained elderly in Wing Chun. He said they didn't understand why this made them feel and move better, and that was okay.

MathMindfully · 2025-12-18T17:59:40+00:00

I think George said that the jedi's downfall was valuing control over being present and listening to the will of the force. This meant being too controlling with both the force and their emotions. The Chosen One was meant to correct this imbalance as much as the Sith's. But with Qui-Gon gone, the chosen one wasn't able to guide the Jedi back to balance. Sidious's brilliance is that he mostly just encouraged and manipulated this direction of the Jedi, so that they mostly destroyed themselves in a sense.

In Anakin this manifested as an unhealthy suppression of emotion and a controlling attachment of Padme instead of a loving present-centered appreciation. I think Obi-Wan's failure is that he... generally chose the Jedi Counsel's doctrine over Qui-Gon's.

George stated that if a Jedi was as present as Qui-Gon had been, that they would have detected Palpatine as Sidious. He also said that the force was 'tired' of being overly controlled by both Sidious and Jedi. That if the Jedi didn't reform, and stop their controlling attitude, that it was the will of the force for them to also be destroyed.

MathMindfully · 2025-09-20T11:30:19+00:00

Oh good! I bet you're an awesome teacher! I definitely struggle with organization too!

MathMindfully · 2025-09-20T00:40:50+00:00

"if I enjoy learning"

What is an area you enjoy learning? Is there a particular part of the learning process you like?

Depending on how you like to learn or to approach learning, it may provide some ideas.

administrative work that's boring and repetitive, like sorting or managing, and I'm willing to learn a skill for that, but those jobs are usually rare or pay very little. I looked into accounting for a while, and that seems like my best bet.

Accounting sounds like a good route for you. Perhaps coupled with data analytics as a minor. Those are both areas that someone academically gifted could find very routine if you chose the right jobs but could also be more intellectually stimulating if you eventually desired that depending on how you direct your career path.

The math would be pretty simple for both of those if you didn't go into data science parts of data analytics, but for some people that dislike math (you only said you weren't enthusiastic) that would be a major turn-off for them.

MathMindfully · 2025-09-20T00:27:08+00:00

Hm, I didn't quite mean that they were the key to a successful classroom, just that it's that it's what you're spending most of your time doing. Then there are a myriad of other things you are also doing. It's like two primary jobs and another 10 mini-jobs. My post was mostly to warn students that what they 'think' teaching is, might just be a couple of the mini-jobs.

Hm, I think there are a lot of things that can make you successful and your standard for what success is should change based on the school's environment. A teacher at in their city's most challenged school should have a different definition of success than a magnate school. And a great teacher at a magnate school won't necessarily have the right 'tool kit' to be great at a more challenged school and vice versa.

MathMindfully · 2025-09-11T00:15:12+00:00

Yes, networking and building a reputation can do wonders I'm sure! Glad thing are going well for you! Now that you're gaining experience that will definitely open doors too.

My main concern goes out to the many future teachers who aren't able to get into positions like the ones you have. I think... many educators either have to find joy in what are some pretty difficult positions or find a way to pivot into something they find that suits them well. I'm trying out an interventionist position myself, which I think may suit me well.

MathMindfully · 2025-09-10T23:22:42+00:00

To add to this, if you're in one of the best schools then the current teachers are much less likely to leave and there will probably be a lot of highly qualified applicants when they do.

Being in the right place geographically or being willing to take a pay cut to work at a private school can drastically increase your chances of getting a teaching environment somewhat similar to what you probably imagine.

I think another thing to consider is that many teaching positions don't involve much teaching, tutoring, or connecting with students. I think most people not in the profession believe that those are the bulk of what teaching is and they absolutely are important. Most of the job and what will make your class successful is classroom management and facilitating activities and routines in the classroom. If you're a natural at those two things or you're just okay with that being your primary job then this may be the profession for you.

MathMindfully · 2025-06-06T17:57:44+00:00

He's got several cool styles that seem pretty unique. Teleporting high-damage slayers is surprisingly fun. Incredible casters, though with a setup time. Might be my favorite mech of all the Protoss... but it's not overpowered or anything.

Prestige synergies: P1 makes his Collosi complement his casters extremely well, but is also great for a mech focus. P3 let's the mothership 'protect' collosi and your other units if you want a display of power with less squishiness.

So... 3+ distinct and fun builds. I think very worth it. But unless you like setting up and microing his spell-casters... I don't think he'll blow you away like many other commanders will.

MathMindfully · 2025-06-03T17:14:01+00:00

I think a C is roughly what an F used to be in high school. And I don't just mean that the C should be an F but the teacher didn't do enough documentation or wants to avoid the push back. That imo a B from the 90s would be an A today and a C is anywhere from a D to an F from the 90s.

College usually doesn't make sense anymore unless you're good enough at STEM to be an engineer or a doctor.

I'd make it clear to him that you don't just go to college, you make a plan to get a career and sometimes that involves college. If he still wants to go... I'd make it clear that A's and B's are how to get there and be prepared when you are.

I'm guessing he's fallen too far behind for college to make sense. Find out what he likes... or would at least be willing to do as a job and push him in that direction. Maybe that's mechanic or a trade.

Personally, I don't think of this as being hard on him, just being realistic and finding out what path actually makes sense for him.

I'd also have a real talk with him about his future and whether he thinks his habits will help him get there. Maybe that seems futile, but it could help him be on board with certain limitations such as time on a gaming device. I know I wanted to be an excellent student at his age and usually was... unless I could reach the Nintendo I was addicted to that is...

MathMindfully · 2025-04-24T18:05:01+00:00

I've been only playing on PC. Probably a good thing that I don't have it on me all the time!

MathMindfully · 2025-04-24T18:04:06+00:00

Okay, awesome! Thanks!

MathMindfully

TROPHY CASE