teacherhood

I've been grading papers. That's right - the math teacher. Grading papers. I assigned my two Algebra II classes a project.... They had to do/count/measure something 10 times, plot the points on a coordinate plane, then use the graph to find an equation for whatever it was that they originally did. Then they had to write a paper on it. The only stipulation was that the graph couldn't be a straight line, because that would be too easy. So, for example, several of them had the idea to exercise hard for awhile, then stop and take their pulse every minute for ten minutes.... It declines nearly exponentially until it plateaus at the resting heart rate. At any rate, some of these papers are real beauties......

"To start this project, I had to get data first. I was thinking about what to do. Finally, I decided to time every three pushups I do. I had to do that for ten times. It was very tiring. After I got all the data, I plotted those points on a graph, and it was a line. I was very disappointed. I did thirty pushups. That was not even funny."

"As I think to those ugly times, I can feel the pain inside my stomach." (This from the boy who timed himself drinking 100 ml of water 10 times. That's an entire liter in less than 5 minutes!)

"While I was doing it, I spilled water all over my shirt, only because it was the teacher's water bottle. . . When I was doing it, she took pictures with the big, black camera." (Same boy)

"After finishing, I went to the restroom three times at school, but before I finished, I went twice. At home, I went to the toilet five times, which makes it that I went to the toilet 10 times after I did this project." (Still the same boy. Obviously.)

"I'm glad Christmas break is almost here! Yay! Merry Christmas, Miss!"

"Since if I plug in 10 for x in my equation I will get 51.45 for my heart rate. If I keep adding up the minutes, I'll eventually die in one hour!"

"The Effects of Gravity on a Scooter and Rider with Little Forward Motion Caused by the Rider on a Fairly Evenly Sloped, Rough Road. " (One kid's project title)

"Then, taking long, comfortable strides (since I was not confident in my own ability to keep my strides constant), he would walk back up to the original starting point while counting his steps."

"So that means that if I did 35 jumping jacks, my hart rate would be 1,276 hart beats per minute."

"I seriously didn't know what to do for this massive project. I figured that checking my pulse ten times every minute after an exercise would be the easiest of all. I went down to the gym and played basketball with my little dorm fellows. After thirty minutes, I still didn't feel like my heart was beating faster, so I played my favorite sport, soccer, instead. But because I was goalkeeping, my pulse slowed down completely. So I ran a suicide and four laps." (By Steve, the best goalie ever who is moving to America in a week and I cried like a baby when I found out)

"Readers beware, without a high (indeed, a higher) level of mathematical education, one will not be able to comprehend the intensive mathematical processes that I used to discover the effects of a power on the number 2."

"I then proceeded to attempt to plot this data on a graph. It was rather difficult, seeing as how one point goes up to (8, 256). However, I persevered through the trial because, as Paul put it, 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance' (Paul/God 1)."

"I then hoped desperately that the teacher is in a humorous mood when she reads this and grades it.... I hope any points she takes off will be justified by an error in calculations on my part, and not her prejudice against creative writing and humor expressed through an Algebra II project 'typed description' (Teacher 1)"

"This is my equation. Take it away from this scrap of paper, apply it to your life, and you will find success in all you do."

JiHyun, the water drinking wonder. See the pain etched on his face.




















Kang running circles around my room to get his pulse up after doing pushups resulted in a straight line, as taken by Jimin.