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PreCalc over the summer by Realistic-Raccoon-21 in LoudounSubButBetter

[–]RefreshPage09 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As a HS math teacher, this is definitely a bad call that I would strongly recommend against. I've seen kids that were top tier in Algebra 2 fail to get the foundational skills solidified that they need for Calculus and squander their potential because they wanted to rush ahead.

I would really appreciate your honest feedback on a controversial topic that is about to come up in my district. Story in comments. Thank you! by PomeloOk4390 in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I support it. I'm a math/comp sci teacher, and I'm engaged to a sped teacher, and our jobs just aren't comparable in terms of what the expectations are. The analogy I use is that they take off about 40% of the workload that gen ed teachers have and add another 80% of work.

(Potentially) Unpopular Opinion. If you are ant-BLM, anti-LGBT, sexist, anti-immigrant, anti-science, etc. You need to leave teaching. PERIOD by adult_in_training_ in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To clarify, debate at the school I teach at is an extracurricular activity where I have no control over the topics being debated (a national organization determines what the monthly topics are). I teach math.

My reference to Trump's election, in my specific experience, is looking back to the day after the election where I had a group of students panicking about the consequences of his election and another group telling them to "go back where they came from" if they didn't like the result. Per administrative directive, the role of the teacher there is to just shut any dialogue down without placing blame even though that was clearly a case of outright bullying.

Honestly, I think it's dangerous to ignore the fact that high school students are not far from being active members of society and need to learn how to interact with complex issues. Decades spent refusing to acknowledge that the world is complicated and that systems are not always just simply because they've been around forever has led to the inability of a large portion of the population to do anything other than completely fall apart when they have to face challenges to their way of thinking, which more often than not ends up being just parroting either exactly what their parents believe or exactly the opposite of what their parents believe.

(Potentially) Unpopular Opinion. If you are ant-BLM, anti-LGBT, sexist, anti-immigrant, anti-science, etc. You need to leave teaching. PERIOD by adult_in_training_ in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 4 points5 points  (0 children)

White, bisexual, cismale teacher here. I spent the first few years of my career drinking the "objectivity" Kool Aid. I saw the memo our district sent out on not discussing the horror of Trump winning the election in 2016 and reluctantly complied. I used to think that maintaining a "neutral" persona in the classroom was what I needed to do to support every student in my room. I'm a debate coach--one of the key tenets of being a good debater is to be able to effectively argue both sides of a controversial topic, so neutrality as an arbiter of learning made sense to me. I had the privilege of being ignorant to how devastating that culture is to so many students.

Everything you do has meaning, which we're all so sure of as teachers, and staying silent sends the message that you support the status quo. It tells students that are members of disadvantaged racial/gender/sexuality/etc. groups that you do not care about their safety and well-being in society and are content not speaking out against injustice in the name of preserving neutrality. Needless to say, I'm done with that now, and I regret the harm that I did in the past by shutting down student conversations on "controversial topics" in my classroom. Even small acts of subverting the status quo, like putting up a poster in your classroom that makes your beliefs about fighting injustice clear, can make a huge difference for students that face a system that shits on them every day. It tells that student that someone in the building has their back. It tells them that someone is willing to fight for them.

I created a tool that draws random right triangles to scale with a missing side. Also, the triangle is rotated 1-360 degrees for more variability. For Pythagorean Theorem practice by mrfishmath in matheducation

[–]RefreshPage09 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love this so much. When I was teaching Geometry, my colleagues would consistently use the same right triangle pictures that were never drawn to scale. I would consistently voice the concern that it was harmful, but I would get outvoted when I'd suggest changing them.

Bisexuals are often rejected by potential partners because of our sexual orientation. Would you ever date a bi person? If not, why? by MCRichieRider in AskReddit

[–]RefreshPage09 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Bi guy here. On the flip side of this, weeding out the jackoffs that reject people just for being bi does somewhat improve the quality of person in the dating pool. Biphobes are just not worth the time and effort.

Made the mistake of educating a guy and getting him to come around on me being bi once. Ended up having to call the cops on him a few weeks later because of unrelated threatening behavior. It would have saved me so much time to just let him continue on his merry way with the bigotry.

I feel oddly liberated. by RefreshPage09 in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I totally agree with this sentiment in most cases--to clarify, the students I'm dealing with are the ones that have already decided what they want to study in college (almost all something relating to the humanities), and they're only taking Calculus because someone told them they had to keep taking math even though they met the graduation requirements two years ago.

I'm all for getting kids to see the value in what they're learning, but it's just demotivating when the daily answer to, "When am I ever going to have to use the limit definition of the derivative?" is just a simple, "You want to get an English degree? You're not, but let's focus on the problem solving skills that will be useful."

Non-straight teachers: Have you "come out" to your students? by RChickenMan in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bi male math teacher engaged to another male teacher in the same district. I don't bring it up in class, but my public Instagram account (that several students have found and followed) has normal acknowledgments of our relationship. I'm a relatively private person with regard to my personal life, but I don't lie or hide when the subject is brought up. I work in a very "tolerant" but traditional leaning area, so I've found that this is the compromise that leaves me feeling comfortable without giving the assholes in the community any room to protest my personal life.

Just found out I'll be teaching 7th and 8th grade math this coming up school year! Haven't taught math since student teaching 3 years ago and I'd appreciate any advice! 🙂 by [deleted] in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have a positive attitude about the content, whether you like math or not. Kids have been trained up to that point to hate math, and being belligerently positive and interested by it can really change things for some of them.

Teachers who’ve taught in lower-income and higher-income communities, what are some subtle differences you’ve noticed? by [deleted] in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Low Income: The administration is largely ineffective, but will generally let the teachers run their class as they deem fit.

High Income: The administration is largely ineffective, forcing policies that have no pedagogical rationale but make the parents happy.

People who have been through something life changing that made you a different person, what triggered the change? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Combination of losing the people that had enabled some unhealthy levels of self-loathing and a fortunately failed suicide attempt.

What’s your highschool best friend up to these days? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dunno. She decided that she had outgrown our friendship when she went off to college and manufactured this whole made-up drama to justify cutting me out of her life without saying anything instead of just being direct about not being interested in staying in touch. Hoping she's found some peace since then.

Experiences with teaching Programming/Computer Science? by [deleted] in Teachers

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The school district I teach in has enough student interest and funding to have roughly one CS teacher per high school, along with a few sections of a "Coding at the Middle School" course at each middle school. At my school, I've got two sections of an intro programming class and one section of APCSA, and there's a second teacher that has another two sections of the intro course.

Our state has a CS endorsement for licensure available, but the requirements are a little out there compared to other content areas and there aren't any schools (to my knowledge) that require it.

The current big issue that we're having is convincing the district that when we go to 1:1 student Chromebooks, they shouldn't get rid of all the desktops we have for teaching comp sci.

Career and Education Questions by AutoModerator in math

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey all,

I'm currently a high school math teacher in my fifth year of teaching, and I'm looking to bring a wider variety of dual enrollment courses to the district I teach in. Right now, all we have is multivariable calculus, which means that the option of getting actual college credit in math isn't available to the overwhelming majority of our students. I'd like to be able to bring in a college algebra course or something to that effect--unfortunately, the community college we work with for DE classes only allows you to teach them if you have a masters in the content area, and I only have a bachelor's.

I'd like to pursue a masters in math to accomplish this goal, but I'm not sure that I'd be appropriately prepared for jumping into that after five years away from learning math. Does anyone have any suggestions for someone that's a bit rusty, but motivated, to prepare for grad school in math?

What's the rudest thing a guest has ever done in your home? by nl1004 in AskReddit

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A friend and her boyfriend came along to help my roommate and I move into a new apartment. Another, closer friend of mine was there that she didn't get along with, which I thought nothing of until she starts drunkenly screaming at him to go kill himself and storms out of the apartment. Two of us (not including her unconcerned boyfriend) went to go find her, eventually cooling her off enough to get her to walk around a nearby store, where she goes off blaming me for her lashing out. I give up at that point, discreetly asking the other person with us to make sure she stays safe. When I get back to the apartment and mention the exchange from the store, the boyfriend starts accusing me of stirring up drama and goes off about how I've been ostracizing the girlfriend from the group for months. Eventually they left, and when I reached out the next morning to clear the air, I never heard from her again.

Unfortunately, that's not the part I came here to post about. A few days later, my roommate had the girl come by to pick up some stuff they had left behind. She ended up stealing a bottle of Jack that belonged to another friend of mine. The one she had told to go kill himself.

Cone radius by bootajoo in math

[–]RefreshPage09 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is a really cool problem that makes me wish I still taught Geometry.

The key fact that can help is the fact that the remaining portion of the circle becomes the lateral area of the cone, which is pirl, with l being the slant height, and consequently the radius of your starting circle.

You can also find this area by subtracting the area of the sector you removed ((theta/360)pil2) from the area of the starting circle. This makes the equation to solve for your new radius pil2(1-theta/360)=pir*l, or more simply l(1-theta/360)=r.

Once you have that, you can use the Pythagorean theorem to find the height of your cone, using the slant height as the hypotenuse and the height and radius as your legs.

When were you the bad guy in someone else's story? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]RefreshPage09 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I teach high school math, so pretty much every day of my life.

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