paradigm shift

This morning I came to work and my classroom seemed different. Alot of my decorations were missing, my books were not the subjects they usually are, and there was all sorts of quadratic looking rubbish scribbled on my white board.

I commented on this strange phenomenon to a few of my boys who instantly burst into snickering laughter. You guessed it. I was a victim of a high school senior prank. And so was the math teacher!

When my linear teaching associate came later we all had a jolly laugh about the whole thing. But then as school time and the rest of the boys started to arrive, we decided to have a little fun. Right as school started, the math teacher looks at me and asks "What am I teaching today?"

I responded without a pause, "The Berlin Wall just fell down. What do I got?" "Algebra II" was the answer. Got it.

So, while my buddy taught the Czech factory workers revolution and Tienanmen Square, I taught the square roots of irrational numbers and 'factoring' irregular equations. This proved slightly difficult since the last math class I attended was nigh unto a decade ago. However, I did manage to pull off some pretty nice off-the-cuff Algebra.

It was a blast, and the boys had no idea how to take it all. Some of them were amazed we could teach both subjects. Some of them just kept asking questions like I actually knew math. It was a riot. Chew on that senior pranksters!