Two plus Two equals I want to punch you in the face.
STEVE ANGRY!
STEVE SMASH!
ARRRGGHHH!!!
**incoming school rant**
So we started our math unit today. On Friday before the long weekend, we had the first 2 chapters in our math book assigned to us as homework. This sounded very worrisome until I opened the book and saw chapter 1 was basic adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing whole numbers. I skimmed through and basically skipped it since each question I stopped on, I got the correct answer without much effort, (most i just did in my head, no small feat considering I was sitting in one of the busiest train stations in Canada on one of the busiest travel days of the year). Chapter 2 is fractions, which I actually did the chapter review questions for, again, fairly easily. (difficulty level: no calculator)
I get to school today (late but on time, an entirely different matter :madsmile expecting us to review both chapters since we have 12 classes scheduled to cover the 12 chapters in our book. This would give us an extra class later when we might need it for difficult things like trigonometry, advanced algebra, statistics, etc.
Oh no. Instead, we spent 4 and a half hours being taught how to add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers. Not even decimals, negatives, etc. involved. The most basic of math. ALL FUCKING AFTERNOON.
There's a kid in our class (Devon) that has already gotten on everyone's nerves. He has to be the special one and the center of attention, etc. He's been going on since day 1 that he's afraid of the math unit because it'll be really hard for him and blah blah whine whine whine. I understand that if you haven't done much math in awhile, yes, it's very difficult. I found it the same way back in 2007 when I was back in college after 6 years taking essentially the same math course we are now. It was also a challenge last winter/spring when I was taking the course and then working for H&R Block to get into the habit of doing simple arithmetic in my head (because it looks really bad if the guy you're paying to do your taxes has to get out a calculator for math you as the customer are able to do on your own). But... this kid didn't do any of the work assigned. So I can't have sympathy for him being lost when he knew it was coming and put forth no effort.
Two other guys in our class (of 5 in total) also found today basically a joke. The other guy, I think some of the refresher was good for him (since he also didn't touch his textbook over the weekend) but basically knew what was going on once he saw it. If we continue at a snail's pace for the one kid Devon and end up sacrificing time the other 4 of us could have used more wisely, I'm going to end up having a discussion with our teacher and possibly the head of the school.
An example from today about this Devon kid. He was up at the board solving a problem. He wasn't able to do long division. Our teacher K, (he's persian and has a crazy name so just goes by K) was trying to teach him. "Well, because I didn't learn it this way in school, and with the number line the way it is in the Western Hemisphere, I just don't understand this." He then went back to his seat and sat down. It took K telling him 3 times to get back up there to finish the question before he would. So he's not putting forth effort because he doesn't want to learn.
Example number 2, which is an "Are you fucking kidding me?" moment. He was up at the board solving a problem and had to add 5+6. He had to walk back to his desk and get his calculator to do it. It was at that moment I decided tomorrow before class I'm going to demand of our instructor that no calculators are allowed tomorrow. We shouldn't need them. In the real world on a job, we won't be able to go get a calculator for such simple math.
Tonight calls for scotch. Lots of scotch. (and WoW once the patch finishes installing... and when the servers finally come back.. failing that.. hoping the Beta servers are up)
STEVE SMASH!
ARRRGGHHH!!!
**incoming school rant**
So we started our math unit today. On Friday before the long weekend, we had the first 2 chapters in our math book assigned to us as homework. This sounded very worrisome until I opened the book and saw chapter 1 was basic adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing whole numbers. I skimmed through and basically skipped it since each question I stopped on, I got the correct answer without much effort, (most i just did in my head, no small feat considering I was sitting in one of the busiest train stations in Canada on one of the busiest travel days of the year). Chapter 2 is fractions, which I actually did the chapter review questions for, again, fairly easily. (difficulty level: no calculator)
I get to school today (late but on time, an entirely different matter :madsmile expecting us to review both chapters since we have 12 classes scheduled to cover the 12 chapters in our book. This would give us an extra class later when we might need it for difficult things like trigonometry, advanced algebra, statistics, etc.
Oh no. Instead, we spent 4 and a half hours being taught how to add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers. Not even decimals, negatives, etc. involved. The most basic of math. ALL FUCKING AFTERNOON.
There's a kid in our class (Devon) that has already gotten on everyone's nerves. He has to be the special one and the center of attention, etc. He's been going on since day 1 that he's afraid of the math unit because it'll be really hard for him and blah blah whine whine whine. I understand that if you haven't done much math in awhile, yes, it's very difficult. I found it the same way back in 2007 when I was back in college after 6 years taking essentially the same math course we are now. It was also a challenge last winter/spring when I was taking the course and then working for H&R Block to get into the habit of doing simple arithmetic in my head (because it looks really bad if the guy you're paying to do your taxes has to get out a calculator for math you as the customer are able to do on your own). But... this kid didn't do any of the work assigned. So I can't have sympathy for him being lost when he knew it was coming and put forth no effort.
Two other guys in our class (of 5 in total) also found today basically a joke. The other guy, I think some of the refresher was good for him (since he also didn't touch his textbook over the weekend) but basically knew what was going on once he saw it. If we continue at a snail's pace for the one kid Devon and end up sacrificing time the other 4 of us could have used more wisely, I'm going to end up having a discussion with our teacher and possibly the head of the school.
An example from today about this Devon kid. He was up at the board solving a problem. He wasn't able to do long division. Our teacher K, (he's persian and has a crazy name so just goes by K) was trying to teach him. "Well, because I didn't learn it this way in school, and with the number line the way it is in the Western Hemisphere, I just don't understand this." He then went back to his seat and sat down. It took K telling him 3 times to get back up there to finish the question before he would. So he's not putting forth effort because he doesn't want to learn.
Example number 2, which is an "Are you fucking kidding me?" moment. He was up at the board solving a problem and had to add 5+6. He had to walk back to his desk and get his calculator to do it. It was at that moment I decided tomorrow before class I'm going to demand of our instructor that no calculators are allowed tomorrow. We shouldn't need them. In the real world on a job, we won't be able to go get a calculator for such simple math.
Tonight calls for scotch. Lots of scotch. (and WoW once the patch finishes installing... and when the servers finally come back.. failing that.. hoping the Beta servers are up)