Math Teacher Quotes

I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn't like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn't be a mother and it was likely you wouldn't become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You'd become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the show to say goodbye, and the stunning raven-haired Squaller handed her another gift. "A blue kefta," said the math teacher, shaking her head. "What would she do with that?" "Maybe she knew a Grisha who died," replied the cook, taking note of the tears that filled the girl's eyes. They did not see the note that read, You will always be one of us.

Mr. Merrick, I'd like to speak with you." Mr. Merrick. He hated when teachers called him that, like he was an old man stopping by to learn a few math tricks.

Taking pity on me, Carissa kept her voice low. “You were calling out for Daemon.”I dropped my face in my hands and moaned. “Oh, God.” Lesa giggled. “It was kind of cute.” A minute before the tardy bell rang, I felt an all-too-familiar warmth on my neck and glanced up. Daemon swaggered into class. Textbook-less as usual. He had a notebook, but I don’t think he ever wrote anything in it. I was beginning to suspect our math teacher was an alien, because how else would Daemon get away with not doing a damn thing in class? He passed by without so much as a look. I twisted around in my chair. “I need to talk to you.” He slid into his desk chair. “Okay.” “In private,” I whispered. His expression didn’t change as he leaned back in his chair. “Meet me in the library at lunch. No one really goes in there. You know, with all those books and stuff.

I think we need more math majors who don't become mathematicians. More math major doctors, more math major high school teachers, more math major CEOs, more math major senators. But we won't get there unless we dump the stereotype that math is only worthwhile for kid geniuses.

A math teacher’s least favorite thing to hear from a student is “I get the concept, but I couldn’t do the problems.” Though the student doesn’t know it, this is shorthand for “I don’t get the concept.

An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them? Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the classroom, more exams and tests, more certification for teachers, and less money for art. All of these responses come from the place where we want to make the child into the best adult possible, not in the ancient Greek sense of virtuous and wise, but in the sense of one who is an efficient part of the machinery of society. But on all these counts, soul is neglected.

Ask your child for information in a gentle, nonjudgmental way, with specific, clear questions. Instead of “How was your day?” try “What did you do in math class today?” Instead of “Do you like your teacher?” ask “What do you like about your teacher?” Or “What do you not like so much?” Let her take her time to answer. Try to avoid asking, in the overly bright voice of parents everywhere, “Did you have fun in school today?!” She’ll sense how important it is that the answer be yes.

No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

I got zero on a maths test once," I said. "The teacher said he'd wanted to give me a minus number, but the computer wouldn't let him.

I think I was born 'in to deep,' and bad things happen every day. Sometimes I have to stab hellions. Sometimes I have to frame friends for murder, and stab evil math teachers, and watch my best friend die. Again. We deal with it, then we move on.

Public schools were not only created in the interests of industrialism—they were created in the image of industrialism. In many ways, they reflect the factory culture they were designed to support. This is especially true in high schools, where school systems base education on the principles of the assembly line and the efficient division of labor. Schools divide the curriculum into specialist segments: some teachers install math in the students, and others install history. They arrange the day into standard units of time, marked out by the ringing of bells, much like a factory announcing the beginning of the workday and the end of breaks. Students are educated in batches, according to age, as if the most important thing they have in common is their date of manufacture. They are given standardized tests at set points and compared with each other before being sent out onto the market. I realize this isn’t an exact analogy and that it ignores many of the subtleties of the system, but it is close enough.

When I was in high school, my math teacher Mr. Packwood used to say, "If you're stuck on a problem, don't sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don't know what you're doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head".

Teachers of subjects that this person wasn't even good at are kissing this person and renouncing the very subjects they taught. Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying "I love you.

My “Best Woman” speech Good evening everyone, my name is Rosie and as you can see Alex has decided to go down the non-traditional route of asking me to be his best woman for the day. Except we all know that today that title does not belong to me. It belongs to Sally, for she is clearly his best woman. I could call myself the “best friend” but I think we all know that today that title no longer refers to me either. That title too belongs to Sally. But what doesn’t belong to Sally is a lifetime of memories of Alex the child, Alex the teenager, and Alex the almost-a-man that I’m sure he would rather forget but that I will now fill you all in on. (Hopefully they all will laugh.) I have known Alex since he was five years old. I arrived on my first day of school teary-eyed and red-nosed and a half an hour late. (I am almost sure Alex will shout out “What’s new?”) I was ordered to sit down at the back of the class beside a smelly, snotty-nosed, messy-haired little boy who had the biggest sulk on his face and who refused to look at me or talk to me. I hated this little boy. I know that he hated me too, him kicking me in the shins under the table and telling the teacher that I was copying his schoolwork was a telltale sign. We sat beside each other every day for twelve years moaning about school, moaning about girlfriends and boyfriends, wishing we were older and wiser and out of school, dreaming for a life where we wouldn’t have double maths on a Monday morning. Now Alex has that life and I’m so proud of him. I’m so happy that he’s found his best woman and his best friend in perfect little brainy and annoying Sally. I ask you all to raise your glasses and toast my best friend Alex and his new best friend, best woman, and wife, Sally, and to wish them luck and happiness and divorce in the future. To Alex and Sally!

I never did very well in math-I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.

I still remember the day I got my first calculator Teacher: All right, children, welcome to fourth grade math. Everyone take a calculator out of the bin. Me: What are these? Teacher: From now on we'll be using calculators. Me: What do these things do? Teacher: Simple operations, like multiplication and division. Me: You mean this device just...does them? By itself? Teacher: Yes. You enter in the problem and press equal. Me: You...you knew about this machine all along, didn't you? This whole time, while we were going through this...this charade with the pencils and the line paper and the stupid multiplication tables!...I'm sorry for shouting...It's just...I'm a little blown away. Teacher: Okay, everyone, today we're going to go over some word problems. Me: What the hell else do you have back there? A magical pen that writes book reports by itself? Some kind of automatic social studies worksheet that...that fills itself out? What the hell is going on? Teacher: If a farmer farms five acres of land a day-- Me: So that's it, then. The past three years have been a total farce. All this time I've been thinking, "Well, this is pretty hard and frustrating but I guess these are useful skills to have." Meanwhile, there was a whole bin of these things in your desk. We could have jumped straight to graphing. Unless, of course, there's some kind of graphing calculator! Teacher: There is. You get one in ninth grade. Me: Is this...Am I on TV? Is this a prank show? Teacher: No.

Why don’t high school math teachers ever come up with cool problems like this? If a 150-pound Irish wolfhound launches himself at seventeen miles per hour at a 250-pound draugr, will that dead motherfucker go down? The answer is Hel yes.

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. —Thomas Carruthers

Mom was a math teacher, but reading was her great love

I think you mother has Asperger's," Georgie had said to Neal. "They didn't get Asperger's int he '50s." "I'm just saying maybe she's on the the spectrum." "She's just a math teacher.

Behind us, the man laughed. "Looks like we aren't the only ones looking for a little diversion. There's an empty office right over there, guys." Marsten raised his hand in thanks. The couple moved on. I let the kiss continue for five more seconds, then pulled away. "They're gone," I said. Marsten frowned, as if surprised-and disappointed-that I'd noticed. I tugged my hair from his hands. "Okay, coast clear," I said. "Let's go." He let out a small laugh. "I see I need to brush up on my kissing." "No, you have that down pat." "She says with all the excitement of a teacher grading a math quiz..." "A-plus. Now let's move. Before someone else comes along.

Something, somewhere, somewhen, must have happened differently... PETUNIA EVANS married Michael Verres, a Professor of Biochemistry at Oxford. HARRY JAMES POTTER-EVANS-VERRES grew up in a house filled to the brim with books. He once bit a math teacher who didn't know what a logarithm was. He's read Godel, Escher, Bach and Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases and volume one of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. And despite what everyone who's met him seems to fear, he doesn't want to become the next Dark Lord. He was raised better than that. He wants to discover the laws of magic and become a god. HERMIONE GRANGER is doing better than him in every class except broomstick riding. DRACO MALFOY is exactly what you would expect an eleven-year-old boy to be like if Darth Vader were his doting father. PROFESSOR QUIRRELL is living his lifelong dream of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, or as he prefers to call his class, Battle Magic. His students are all wondering what's going to go wrong with the Defense Professor this time. DUMBLEDORE is either insane, or playing some vastly deeper game which involved setting fire to a chicken. DEPUTY HEADMISTRESS MINERVA MCGONAGALL needs to go off somewhere private and scream for a while. Presenting: HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY You ain't guessin' where this one's going.

[Math] curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with something to test the students on.

Nine equals eight … just ask any math teacher. Well, make that a Tampa-St. Pete area math teacher, one who also likes baseball, and is a diehard Rays fan, and who knows that Joe Maddon deserves more than just the 2008 Manager of the Year Award.

Dum walks backwards, talking to us. “We’re going back to high school where our survival instincts are at their finest.” “If you get the urge to graffiti the walls or beat up your old math teacher,” says Dee, “do it where the birds can’t see you.

That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the snow to say goodbye, and the stunning raven-haired Squaller handed her another gift. “A blue kefta,” said the math teacher, shaking her head. “What would she do with that?” “Maybe she knew a Grisha who died,” replied the cook, taking note of the tears that filled the girl’s eyes. They did not see the note that read, You will always be one of us.

The day passed. People had butchered my name, teachers hadn’t known what the hell to do with me, my math teacher looked at my face and gave a five-minute speech to the class about how people who don’t love this country should just go back to where they came from and I stared at my textbook so hard it was days before I could get the quadratic equation out of my head. Not one of my classmates spoke to me, no one but the kid who accidentally assaulted my shoulder with his bio book. I wished I didn’t care.

Mathematics education is much more complicated than you expected, even though you expected it to be more complicated than you expected.

From inside the elephant, the bird had sounded like it could convince a mountain to turn into a volcano. Now it sounded like her math teacher that one time he had tried to perform a cappella but had stepped on a Lego piece.

I had authority issues. In my defense, my math teacher had it coming. She’d made me write one hundred on the black board, so I wrote one, zero, zero in words since one hundred consisted of those numbers. Because she hadn't been specific in her instructions,she’d berated me for being a smart aleck. The whole class had laughed at me. The next morning, they had to cut her out of her chair.

Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the way our math teacher, Mr. Sung-Li, wore four pencils in his shirt pocket in case he was suddenly attacked by a multiplication problem or something.

Yet in another way, calculus is fundamentally naive, almost childish in its optimism. Experience teaches us that change can be sudden, discontinuous, and wrenching. Calculus draws its power by refusing to see that. It insists on a world without accidents, where one thing leads logically to another. Give me the initial conditions and the law of motion, and with calculus I can predict the future -- or better yet, reconstruct the past. I wish I could do that now.

That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the snow to say goodbye, and the stunning raven-haired Squaller handed her another gift. "A blue kofta," said the math teacher, shaking her head. "What would she do with that?" "Maybe she knew a Grisha who died," replied the cook, taking not of the tears that filled the girl's eyes. They did not see the note that read, You will always be one of us

Education makes your maths better, not necessarily your manners.

Having neurons wire together can be a good thing. A positive experience with a math teacher can lead to neural connections that link math with pleasure, accomplishment, and feeling good about yourself as a student. But the opposite is equally true. Negative experiences with a harsh instructor or a timed test and the anxiety that accompanies it can form connections in the brain that create a serious obstacle to the enjoyment not only of math and numbers, but exams and even school in general.

David sat in the teacher’s lounge. Two other shlemiels sat on the other side, getting coffee. Sports, movies, conversation. He would have to join the group. The new assistant principal was to join them this afternoon. Just say hello. He got up and got coffee. David held the hot coffee and pretended to drink it. Didn’t want to spill on his white shirt. Then a tall slender woman walked in with the main campus principal, Edmond, and she looked around. Now would come the meet and greet. Fresh meat. Edmond turned to him. “This is David Bar David, Doctor Bar David. Math.” The thin woman reached out her hand and David shook it. “My,” she said, “such a warm hand.” “But a cold heart,” he said.

I don’t understand people who eat Chinese food with chopsticks when the restaurant also offers silverware. As a tool, chopsticks are inferior to western utensils like the spoon and fork. So why use them? That’s like showing up to a math test with an abacus, knowing that the teacher is going to be handing out calculators.

Things will change more radically than you could ever imagine. Things will end up 300 miles north of your wildest predictions. Healthy people drop dead in supermarket queues. The future love of your life could be the man sitting next to you on the bus. Your secondary school math teacher and rugby coach might now go by the name of Susan. Everything will change. And it could happen any morning.

They say experience is the best teacher. Instead, it should be that failure is the best teacher. I’ve found that the best learners are the ones who cope best with failure and use it as a learning tool.

To your party I'll bring my World-Famous Leftover Duck Meatloaf. It's from 1999, and the only reason I have it in my possession is because my old high-school math teacher called me up to come remove it from my old locker, because it was making his class smell like Savage Garden.

Mathematicians need to understand a problem only for themselves; math teachers need both to know the math and to know how 30 different minds might understand (or misunderstand) it. Then they need to take each mind from not getting it to mastery. And they need to do this in 45 minutes or less.

Ode to Algebra Thrust into this dingy classroom we die like lampless moths locked into the desolation of fluorescent lights and metal desks. Ten minutes until the bell rings. What use is the quadratic formula in our daily lives? Can we use it to unlock the secrets in the hearts of those we love? Five minutes until the bell rings. Cruel Algebra teacher, won't you let us go?

One of the first and foremost duties of the teacher is not to give his students the impression that mathematical problems have little connection with each other, and no connection at all with anything else. We have a natural opportunity to investigate the connections of a problem when looking back at its solution.

I have this math teacher, Mr. Allen. He said that when you’re a point, all you see is the point. When you’re a line, all you see is the line and the point. When you’re in three dimensions, you see three dimensions and lines and points. Just because we can’t see a fourth dimension doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means we haven’t reached it yet.

American students, we are told, are falling behind in reading and math; on test after test, they score below most European students (at the level of Lithuania), and the solution, rather than seeking to engage their curiosity, has been testing and more testing— a dry and brittle method that produces lackluster results. And so resources are pulled from the “soft” fields that are not being tested. Music teachers are being fired or not replaced; art classes are quietly dropped from the curriculum; history is simplified and moralized, with little expectation that any facts will be learned or retained; and instead of reading short stories, poems and novels, students are invited to read train schedules and EPA reports whose jargon could put even the most committed environmentalist to sleep.

Back to the man’s face. Not a handsome face as such, but a face you could trust. Sort of like a math teacher, or a minister. You can tell he’s sincere, and sincere is better than handsome. Really handsome men were a bad idea, said Grandma Win, because they had too much to choose from. Too much what? Charmaine had asked her, and Grandma Win said, Never mind.

I think your mother has Asperger’s,” Georgie had said to Neal. “They didn’t get Asperger’s in the ’50s.” “I’m just saying maybe she’s on the spectrum.” “She’s just a math teacher.

You can fuck your math teacher but you can't fuck math.

I’d chosen my profession because it meant I could move anywhere; no matter the city, science and math teachers were needed.

According to a 1995 study, a sample of Japanese eighth graders spent 44 percent of their class time inventing, thinking, and actively struggling with underlying concepts. The study's sample of American students, on the other hand, spent less than 1 percent of their time in that state. “The Japanese want their kids to struggle,” said Jim Stigler, the UCLA professor who oversaw the study and who cowrote The Teaching Gap with James Hiebert. “Sometimes the [Japanese] teacher will purposely give the wrong answer so the kids can grapple with the theory. American teachers, though, worked like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class kept gliding along. But you don't learn by gliding.

As a teacher, Tengo pounded into his students' heads how voraciously mathematics demanded logic. Here things that could not be proven had no meaning, but once you had succeeded in proving something, the world's riddles settled into the palm of your hand like a tender oyster.

He didn’t have any friends at home. He was overweight and the kids at his middle school often teased him about his size. Even his teachers sometimes made cruel comments without realizing it. On his last day of school, his math teacher, Mrs. Bell, taught ratios. As an example, she chose the heaviest kid in the class and the lightest kid in the class, and had them weigh themselves. Stanley weighed three times as much as the other boy. Mrs. Bell wrote the ratio on the board, 3:1, unaware of how much embarrassment she had caused both of them. Stanley

Mrs Dodds was this little maths teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.

You don’t have to like your teacher,” she told me one day after I came home spewing complaints. “But that woman’s got the kind of math in her head that you need in yours. Focus on that and ignore the rest.

IT WAS EASIER FOR PEOPLE to be good at something when more of us lived in small, rural communities. Someone could be homecoming queen. Someone else could be spelling-bee champ, math whiz or basketball star. There were only one or two mechanics and a couple of teachers. In each of their domains, these local heroes had the opportunity to enjoy the serotonin-fuelled confidence of the victor. It may be for that reason that people who were born in small towns are statistically overrepresented among the eminent.68 If

The green fractals of the forest and the eons of faint star clusters above—my math’s teacher’s order in the universe—were nothing like the thoughts that jumped at me like thieves. When your friend has a boyfriend, you are supposed to back off.

American parents, teachers, and children were far more likely than their Japanese and Chinese counterparts to believe that mathematical ability is innate; if you have it, you don’t have to work hard, and if you don’t have it, there’s no point in trying. In contrast, most Asians regard math success, like achievement in any other domain, as a matter of persistence and plain hard work. Of course you will make mistakes as you go along; that’s how you learn and improve. It doesn’t mean you are stupid.

As a result of this “racism smog,” many of our children have internalized all of the negative stereotypes inherent in our society’s views of black people. A student teacher at Southern University told me that she didn’t know what to say when an African American eighth-grade boy came up to her and said, “They made us the slaves because we were dumb, right, Ms. Summers?” Working with a middle schooler on her math, a tutor was admonished, “Why you trying to teach me to multiply, Ms. L.? Black people don’t multiply; black people just add and subtract. White people multiply.

Advice, when she offered it, tended to be of the hard-boiled and pragmatic variety. “You don’t have to like your teacher,” she told me one day after I came home spewing complaints. “But that woman’s got the kind of math in her head that you need in yours. Focus on that and ignore the rest.

That day. Even though my back is turned, I can see what's going on. The sound of their taunting- I know what that looks like. Words like freak and loser- I know what kind of face says them. Our teacher is ignoring it; he does not have the strength to deal with it. Or maybe he agrees with what's being said. He agrees by talking math as the notebook is pulled out of Anton's hand. Even though he sees what's going on, his back is turned.

Today so many creative and devoted teachers not only have to struggle against unimaginative administrations, fearful parents, and wearied colleagues, they have also to battle entire legislative bodies that have never taught a child yet dare to equate educational success or failure with the ability of fourth graders to choose one out of four given answers to mind-numbing questions that have nothing to do with the joy of literature or the elegance of math.

I don't like to overhear things, because, in my experience, things your parents are keeping quiet about are things you don't want to know. It doesn't feel good to know that your grandparents are getting separated because your grandfather lost his temper and gave your grandmother a slap across the face after fifty-two years of being married with no problems at all. It doesn't feel good to know ahead of time what you'll be getting for Christmas or birthdays so that you have to act surprised even though you're a terrible liar. It doesn't feel good to know that your teacher told your mother at a conference that you're an average student in math and English and that you should be happy with that.

I have this math teacher, Mr. Allen. He said that when you're a point, all you see is the point. When you're a line, all you see is the line and the point. When you're in three dimensions, you see three dimensions and lines and points. Just because we can't see a fourth dimension doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means we haven't reached it yet.

Teaching is a dialogue, and it is through the process of engaging students that we see ideas taken from the abstract and played out in concrete visual form. Students teach us about creativity through their personal responses to the limits we set, thus proving that reason and intuition are not antithetical. Their works give aesthetic visibility to mathematical ideas.

unsolicited advice to adolescent girls with crooked teeth and pink hair When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you gave him blue balls, say you’re welcome. When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her. When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time. When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. When your father locks the door, break the window. When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know. When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. Do not regret this. Do not turn red. When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

...he would tell stories about the Holy City, about Solomon, a just king, a poet-king, a monarch with a thousand concubines. We weren't quite sure what concubines were, but we guessed: a concubine ... Concubines! One thousand! One thousand women in all colours and shapes - but all of them sexy, of course - one thousand - one thousand raving beauties lying side by side on a bed (what a bed! How wide it must have been!), all of them smiling, all of them reaching out their arms, all of them saying something in Hebrew - but the meaning was unmistakeable - "Come here, sweety." One thousand women. If one were to spend twenty, or fifteen minutes with each one of them, how long would it take to...? A problem that our math teacher never assigned us for homework...!

Moreover, with the possible exception of high school—level math teachers, there is little evidence that better students make better teachers. Some nations, such as Finland, have been able to build a teaching force made up solely of star students. But other places, such as Shanghai, have made big strides in student achievement without drastically adjusting the demographics of who becomes a teacher.

Child, now I will teach you how to wave at a crowd.” “Teacher, do I really need to learn something like waving ?” “Child, using your normal speed of waving, if you wave continuously for one minute, how many times will you wave in total ?” One minute later... “Teacher, I waved eighty-eight times.” “Then, the last time I went on a parade with the king, how much time did it take ?” “About three hours.” “Now, child, let’s do some math ! If you waved eighty-eight times in one minute, after waving for three hours, how many times will you wave in total ?” “Fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times.” “Child, now let me ask you a health education question : if you wave continuously for fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times, what will your hand look like ?” “...I don’t know.” “That is why, child, you are now learning how to use one thousand waves to handle one parade. Or do you want to wave a full fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times during all of your parades in the future ?” “Teacher ! Please, you must teach me how to wave !

Math. It’s your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real “aptitude” for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren’t even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren’t trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all. You like it because either you’re right or you’re wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it’s right or it’s wrong and you’re done with it. But even that’s changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn’t as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math.

To figure out what students were carrying with them from kindergarten into adulthood, Chetty’s team turned to another possible explanation. In fourth and eighth grade, the students were rated by their teachers on some other qualities. Here’s a sample: Proactive: How often did they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answers, seek information from books, and engage the teacher to learn outside class? Prosocial: How well did they get along and collaborate with peers? Disciplined: How effectively did they pay attention—and resist the impulse to disrupt the class? Determined: How consistently did they take on challenging problems, do more than the assigned work, and persist in the face of obstacles? When students were taught by more experienced kindergarten teachers, their fourth-grade teachers rated them higher on all four of these attributes. So did their eighth-grade teachers. The capacities to be proactive, prosocial, disciplined, and determined stayed with students longer—and ultimately proved more powerful—than early math and reading skills.

The New Groupthink is also practiced in our schools, via an increasingly popular method of instruction called “cooperative” or “small group” learning. In many elementary schools, the traditional rows of seats facing the teacher have been replaced with “pods” of four or more desks pushed together to facilitate countless group learning activities. Even subjects like math and creative writing, which would seem to depend on solo flights of thought, are often taught as group projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited, a big sign announced the “Rules for Group Work,” including, YOU CAN’T ASK A TEACHER FOR HELP UNLESS EVERYONE IN YOUR GROUP HAS THE SAME QUESTION.

A part of Jutta does not want to take the letter. Does not want to hear what this huge man has traveled a long way to say. Weeks go by when Jutta does not allow herself to think of the war, of Frau Elena, of the awful last months in Berlin. Now she can buy pork seven days a week. Now, if the house feels cold she twists a dial in the kitchen, and voilà. She does not want to be one of those middle-aged women who thinks of nothing but her own painful history. Sometimes she looks at the eyes of her older colleagues and wonders what they did when the electricity was out, when there were no candles, when the rain came through the ceiling. What they saw. Only rarely does she loosen the seals enough to allow herself to think of Werner. In many ways, her memories of her brother have become things to lock away. A math teacher at Helmholtz-Gymnasium in 1974 does not bring up a brother who attended the National Political Institute of Education at Schulpforta.

In Korea, math moved fluidly. When the teacher asked questions, the kids answered as if math were a language that they knew by heart. As in Tom’s class in Poland, calculators weren’t allowed, so kids had learned mental tricks to manipulate numbers quickly.

The reality is that most of us grow up strapped in an educational system that favors obedience over independent thinking. We’re rewarded for trusting authority, and punished for challenging it. We focus on memorizing the stuff other people came up with—formulas in math, grammar rules in English, theories in physics, cell functions in biology—rather than grasping the logic behind our most important breakthroughs and tracing the footsteps of their discovery. We answer test questions with what we think our teacher wants to hear. We chase grades instead of knowledge. And worst of all, we leave the classroom woefully unequipped with the thinking skills that matter most: how to balance open-mindedness with skepticism, how to identify bias, and how to challenge assumptions—including our own—in a way that’s truly objective.

The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic components of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder. Often that spark comes from a teacher. Allow me to explain. I wasn’t the easiest person to teach, I was slow to learn to read and my handwriting was untidy. But when I was fourteen my teacher at my school in St Albans, Dikran Tahta, showed me how to harness my energy and encouraged me to think creatively about mathematics. He opened my eyes to maths as the blueprint of the universe itself. If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher. When each of us thinks about what we can do in life, chances are we can do it because of a teacher. [...] The basis for the future of education must lie in schools and inspiring teachers. But schools can only offer an elementary framework where sometimes rote-learning, equations and examinations can alienate children from science. Most people respond to a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, understanding, without the need for complicated equations. Popular science books and articles can also put across ideas about the way we live. However, only a small percentage of the population read even the most successful books. Science documentaries and films reach a mass audience, but it is only one-way communication.

If you didn’t find some way of stopping it, people would go on asking questions. The teachers were useful there. Bands of them wandered through the mountains, along with the tinkers, portable blacksmiths, miracle medicine men, cloth peddlers, fortune-tellers, and all the other travelers who sold things the people didn’t need every day but occasionally found useful. They went from village to village delivering short lessons on many subjects. They kept apart from the other travelers and were quite mysterious in their ragged robes and strange square hats. They used long words, like corrugated iron. They lived rough lives, surviving on what food they could earn from giving lessons to anyone who would listen. When no one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog. They went to sleep under the stars, which the math teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure, and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woodsand fell into bear traps. People were usually quite pleased to see them. They taught children enough to shut them up, which was the main thing, after all. But they always had to be driven out of the villages by nightfall in case they stole chickens.

Are all the scientists here men, then?” “Scientists?” Oiie asked, incredulous. Pae coughed. “Scientists. Oh, yes, certainly, they’re all men. There are some female teachers in the girls’ schools, of course. But they never get past Certificate level.” “Why not?” “Can’t do the math; no head for abstract thought; don’t belong. You know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there’s always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy.” “You Odonians let women study science?” Oiie inquired. “Well, they are in the sciences, yes.” “Not many, I hope.” “Well, about half.

Are you certain it was Woody who stole the knife?” “Fifteen minutes ago I found him sneaking about the Tigers’ clubhouse,” said Bugs. “He picked up Excalibur—it’s a purple knife and my name is cut into it. He saw me and ran—we bumped as he got out the door. He shoved Excalibur into the pocket of his green pants as he got outside and kept running.” “You didn’t chase him?” “Naw, Woody broke his arm last week, and I don’t fight one-armed kids,” said Bugs. He rolled his eyes toward heaven. “Anyhow, his mother will be my math teacher next year.” “You want me to get the knife back without anyone knowing Woody stole it, is that the idea?” asked Encyclopedia.

How did I know that you needed work? How did I know where Noa goes to school, that his math teacher is a Korean who pretends to be Japanese, that your husband died because he didn’t get out of prison in time, and that you’re alone in this world. How did I know how to keep my family safe? It’s my job to know what others don’t. How did you know to make kimchi and sell it on a street corner to earn money? You knew because you wanted to live. I want to live, too, and if I want to live, I have to know things others don’t. Now, I’m telling you something valuable. I’m telling you something so you can save your sons’ lives. Don’t waste this information. The world can go to hell, but you need to protect your sons.

Marketa really desired, with both her body and her senses, the women she considered Karel's mistresses. And she also desired them with her head: fulfilling the prophecy of her old math teacher, she wanted - at least to the limits of the disastrous contract - to show herself enterprising and playful, and to astonish Karel. But as soon as she found herself naked with them on the wide daybed, the sensual wanderings immediately vanished from her mind, and seeing her husband was enough to return her to her role, the role of the better one, the one who is wronged, Even when she was with Eva, whom she loved very much and of whom she was not jealous, the presence of the man she loved too well weighed heavily on her, stifling the pleasure of the senses. The moment she removed his head from the body, she felt the strange and intoxicating touch of freedom. That anonymity of the body was a suddenly discovered paradise. With an odd delight, she expelled her wounded and too vigilant soul and was transformed into a simple body without past or memory, but all the more eager and receptive. She tenderly caressed Eva's face, while the headless body moved vigorously on top of her. But here the headless body interrupted his movements and, in a voice that reminded her unpleasantly of Karel's, uttered unbelievably idiotic words: "I'm Bobby Fischer! I'm Bobby Fischer!" It was like being awakened from a dream. And just then, as she lay snuggled against Eva (as the awakening sleeper snuggles against his pillow to hide from the dim first light of day), Eva had asked her, "All right?" and she had consented with a sign, pressing her lips against Eva's. She had always loved her, but today for the first time sh loved her with all her senses, for herself, for her body, and for her skin, becoming intoxicated with this fleshly love as with a sudden revelation. Afterward, while they lay side by side on their stomachs, with their buttocks slightly raised, Marketa could feel on her skin that the infinitely efficient body was again fixing its eyes on hers and at any moment was going to start again making love to them. She tried to ignore the voice talking about seeing beautiful Mrs. Nora, tried simply to be a body hearing nothing while lying pressed between a very soft-skinned girlfriend and some headless man.

When you’re carefully paying attention to what your teacher or boss is saying, that’s your frontal lobe at work. Doing math? Frontal lobe. Crossword puzzle? Frontal lobe. Trying to figure out how to handle a former friend who has lately been talking behind your back? The integration of all those feelings, memories, and possible responses requires the quarterbacking of the frontal lobe.

Maybe you’ve noticed what I’ve noticed, and thought it strange, or dismissed it as youthful foolishness or that you were missing some critical piece of information that would reveal itself with age and wisdom – that is: every single teacher believes feverishly in the importance of the content of their class, and furthermore, believes that their assessment of you in their class is a direct measure of your capacity for future success, while simultaneously not having a clue as to the content of virtually any other discipline in the school. They will boldly state things like, That’s math, I’m an English teacher or That’s literature, I’m a biology teacher, practically admitting out loud that nothing learned in school is important (except, of course, the course they are teaching).

If we step back from the progressive argument and put it in any other context, its absurdity immediately becomes apparent. Imagine if I were to say to my daughter, who got a high score on the SAT, “You don’t deserve your scores at all. You didn’t build that. After all, young lady, you had teachers who helped you with vocabulary and math. Moreover, you took the public roads to the test. Had your car been held up along the way or caught fire, you would count on the services of the police and the fire department. So society deserves a large part of the credit for those scores. They don’t reflect your accomplishment but society’s accomplishment.” If I said this I am sure my daughter would think I was talking like an insane person. In fact, of course, I would be talking like a progressive.

The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic components of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder. Often that spark comes from a teacher. Allow me to explain. I wasn’t the easiest person to teach, I was slow to learn to read and my handwriting was untidy. But when I was fourteen my teacher at my school in St Albans, Dikran Tahta, showed me how to harness my energy and encouraged me to think creatively about mathematics. He opened my eyes to maths as the blueprint of the universe itself. If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher. When each of us thinks about what we can do in life, chances are we can do it because of a teacher.

That assumption—that labeling and sorting children based on gender doesn’t really matter as long as everyone is treated fairly—would hold true if children only paid attention to the more overt, obvious messages we adults send. If children only listened to our purposeful messages, parenting would be easy. Most (but not all) parents and teachers take great effort in treating their children fairly, regardless of gender. Parents don’t need to say to their daughters, “You probably won’t enjoy math” or say to their sons, “Real boys don’t play with dolls.” Most parents wouldn’t dream of saying these blatant stereotypes to their kids. But research has shown that when we label (and sort and color-code) by gender, children do notice. And it matters—children are learning whether you mean to be teaching them or not.

It is almost as if ideas set in mathematical form melt and become liquid and just as rivers can, from the most humble beginnings, flow for thousands of miles, through the most varied topography bringing nourishment and life with them wherever they go, so too can ideas cast in mathematical form flow far from their original sources, along well-defined paths, electrifying and dramatically affecting much of what they touch. pp. xii - xiii.

Terrible as this is, there’s worse news. An article in the New York Times points out a statistic that should make our nation’s leaders tremble… suspension rates, kindergarten through high school, have nearly doubled from the early 1970s through 2006. Whatever is happening with our test scores, something else, something catastrophic, is going on in our schools. As countless teachers across America can testify, disruptive kids are hijacking our classrooms.

On the SB5 Stanford-Binet intelligence test Isaiah’s reasoning scores were near genius levels. His abilities came naturally but were honed in his math classes. He was formally introduced to inductive reasoning in geometry, a tenth-grade subject he took in the eighth. His teacher, Mrs. Washington, was a severe woman who looked to be all gristle underneath her brightly colored pantsuits. Lavender, Kelly green, peach. She talked to the class like somebody had tricked her into it. “All

Preachers in the pulpit peddling their wares, while beggars in the street wonder if anyone cares. Teachers in our schools talking bout math, while students are deciding which will be their path. Faithful in their pews listening to the Word, while losers on the corner hope they’ll practice what they’ve heard. Leaders in their meetings trying to save our nation, while voters ponder their true motivation. With people filled with hate and doubt, God is in our boxes waiting to be let out!

I meant it seriously. I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn't like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn't be a mother and it was likely you wouldn't become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You'd become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

FAILURE CAN BE A GREAT TEACHER “When I was in tenth grade I decided to take an AP computer science class. I ended up failing the AP exam. But I would not accept the failure, so I took the class and the test again the following year. Somehow, staying away from programming for nearly a year and then coming back to it made me realize how much I truly enjoyed it. I passed the test easily on the second try. If I had been too afraid of failure to take the computer science class the first time, and then a second time, I would certainly not be what I am today, a passionate and happy computer scientist.

Something, somewhere, somewhen, must have happened differently… PETUNIA EVANS married Michael Verres, a Professor of Biochemistry at Oxford. HARRY JAMES POTTER-EVANS-VERRES grew up in a house filled to the brim with books. He once bit a math teacher who didn’t know what a logarithm was. He’s read Godel, Escher, Bach and Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases and volume one of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. And despite what everyone who’s met him seems to fear, he doesn’t want to become the next Dark Lord. He was raised better than that. He wants to discover the laws of magic and become a god. HERMIONE GRANGER is doing better than him in every class except broomstick riding. DRACO MALFOY is exactly what you would expect an eleven-year-old boy to be like if Darth Vader were his doting father. PROFESSOR QUIRRELL is living his lifelong dream of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, or as he prefers to call his class, Battle Magic. His students are all wondering what’s going to go wrong with the Defense Professor this time. DUMBLEDORE is either insane, or playing some vastly deeper game which involved setting fire to a chicken. DEPUTY HEADMISTRESS MINERVA MCGONAGALL needs to go off somewhere private and scream for a while. Presenting: HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY You ain’t guessin’ where this one’s going.

Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.

The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven). The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading.

It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn’t be a mother and it was likely you wouldn’t become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You’d become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you’d have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

Our two taco specials get shoved up on the serving counter, crispy, cheesy goodness in brown plastic baskets lined with parchment paper, sour cream and guacamole exactly where they should be. On the side. There is a perfect ratio of sour cream, guac, and salsa on a shredded chicken tostada. No one can make it happen for you. Many restaurants have tried. All have failed. Only the mouth knows its own pleasure, and calibration like Taco Heaven cannot be mass produced. It simply cannot. Taco Heaven is a sensory explosion of flavor that defies logic. First, you have to eye the amount of spiced meat, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and tomatillos. You must consider the size and crispiness of the shells. Some people–I call them blasphemers–like soft tacos. I am sitting across from Exhibit A. We won’t talk about soft tacos. They don’t make it to Taco Heaven. People who eat soft tacos live in Taco Purgatory, never fully understanding their moral failings, repeating the same mistakes again and again for all eternity. Like Perky and dating. Once you inventory your meat, lettuce, tomato, and shell quality, the real construction begins. Making your way to Taco Heaven is like a mechanical engineer building a bridge in your mouth. Measurements must be exact. Payloads are all about formulas and precision. One miscalculation and it all fails. Taco Death is worse than Taco Purgatory, because the only reason for Taco Death is miscalculation. And that’s all on you. “Oh, God,” Fiona groans through a mouthful of abomination. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?” “Doing what?” I ask primly, knowing damn well what she’s talking about. “You treat eating tacos like you’re the star of some Mythbusters show.” “Do not.” “Do too.” “Even if I do–and I am notconceding the point–it would be a worthwhile venture.” “You are as weird about your tacos as Perky is about her coffee.” “Take it back! I am not that weird.” “You are.” “Am not.” “This is why Perky and I swore we would never come here with you again.” Fiona grabs my guacamole and smears the rounded scoop all over the outside of her soft taco. I shriek. “How can you do that?” I gasp, the murder of the perfect ratio a painful, almost palpable blow. The mashed avocado has a death rattle that rings in my ears. Smug, tight lips give me a grimace. “See? A normal person would shout, ‘Hey! That’s mine!’ but you’re more offended that I’ve desecrated my inferior taco wrapping with the wrong amount of guac.” “Because it’s wrong.” “You should have gone to MIT, Mal. You need a job that involves nothing but pure math for the sake of calculating stupid shit no one else cares about.” “So glad to know that a preschool teacher holds such high regard for math,” I snark back. And MIT didn’t give me the kind of merit aid package I got from Brown, I don’t add. “Was that supposed to sting?” She takes the rest of my guacamole, grabs a spoon, and starts eating it straight out of the little white paper scoop container thing. “How can you do that? It’s like people who dip their french fries in mayonnaise.” I shudder, standing to get in line to buy more guac. “I dip my french fries in mayo!” “More evidence of your madness, Fi. Get help now. It may not be too late.” I stick my finger in her face. “And by the way, you and Perky talk about my taco habits behind my back? Some friends!” I hmph and turn toward the counter.

There are many things the Chinese do differently from Westerners. There’s the question of extra credit, for example. One time, Lulu came home and told me about a math test she’d just taken. She said she thought it had gone extremely well, which is why she didn’t feel the need to do the extra-credit problems. I was speechless for a second, uncomprehending. “Why not?” I asked. “Why didn’t you do them?” “I didn’t want to miss recess.” A fundamental tenet of being Chinese is that you always do all of the extra credit all of the time. “Why?” asked Lulu, when I explained this to her. For me this was like asking why I should breathe. “None of my friends do it,” Lulu added. “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m 100% sure that Amy and Junno did the extra credit.” Amy and Junno were the Asian kids in Lulu’s class. And I was right about them; Lulu admitted it. “But Rashad and Ian did the extra credit too, and they’re not Asian,” she added. “Aha! So many of your friends did do the extra credit! And I didn’t say only Asians do extra credit. Anyone with good parents knows you have to do the extra credit. I’m in shock, Lulu. What will the teacher think of you? You went to recess instead of doing extra credit?” I was almost in tears. “Extra credit is not extra. It’s just credit. It’s what separates the good students from the bad students." "Aww - recess is so fun," Lulu offered as her final sally. But after that, Lulu, like Sophia. always did the extra credit. Sometimes the girls got more points on extra credit than on the test itself - an absurdity that would never happen in China. Extra credit is one reason that Asian kids get such notoriously good grades in the United States. Rote drilling is another. Once Sophia came in second on a multiplication speed test, which her fifth grade teacher administered every Friday. She lost to a Korean boy named Yoon-seok. Over the next week, I made Sophia do twenty practice tests (of 100 problems each) every night, with me clocking her with a stopwatch. After that, she came in first every time. Poor Yoon-seok. He went back to Korea with his family, but probably not because of the speed test.

Knock, knock. Who's there? A: Lettuce Q: Lettuce who? A: Lettuce in, it's freezing out here.. . 2. Q: What do elves learn in school? A: The elf-abet . 3. Q: Why was 6 afraid of 7? A: Because: 7 8 9 . . 4. Q. how do you make seven an even number? A. Take out the s! . 5. Q: Which dog can jump higher than a building? A: Anydog – Buildings can’t jump! . 6. Q: Why do bananas have to put on sunscreen before they go to the beach? A: Because they might peel! . 7. Q. How do you make a tissue dance? A. You put a little boogie in it. . 8. Q: Which flower talks the most? A: Tulips, of course, 'cause they have two lips! . 9. Q: Where do pencils go for vacation? A: Pencil-vania . 10. Q: What did the mushroom say to the fungus? A: You're a fun guy [fungi]. . 11. Q: Why did the girl smear peanut butter on the road? A: To go with the traffic jam! . 11. Q: What do you call cheese that’s not yours? A: Nacho cheese! . 12. Q: Why are ghosts bad liars? A: Because you can see right through them. . 13. Q: Why did the boy bring a ladder to school? A: He wanted to go to high school. . 14. Q: How do you catch a unique animal? A: You neak up on it. Q: How do you catch a tame one? A: Tame way. . 15. Q: Why is the math book always mad? A: Because it has so many problems. . 16. Q. What animal would you not want to pay cards with? A. Cheetah . 17. Q: What was the broom late for school? A: Because it over swept. . 18. Q: What music do balloons hate? A: Pop music. . 19. Q: Why did the baseball player take his bat to the library? A: Because his teacher told him to hit the books. . 20. Q: What did the judge say when the skunk walked in the court room? A: Odor in the court! . 21. Q: Why are fish so smart? A: Because they live in schools. . 22. Q: What happened when the lion ate the comedian? A: He felt funny! . 23. Q: What animal has more lives than a cat? A: Frogs, they croak every night! . 24. Q: What do you get when you cross a snake and a pie? A: A pie-thon! . 25. Q: Why is a fish easy to weigh? A: Because it has its own scales! . 26. Q: Why aren’t elephants allowed on beaches? A:They can’t keep their trunks up! . 27. Q: How did the barber win the race? A: He knew a shortcut! . 28. Q: Why was the man running around his bed? A: He wanted to catch up on his sleep. . 29. Q: Why is 6 afraid of 7? A: Because 7 8 9! . 30. Q: What is a butterfly's favorite subject at school? A: Mothematics. Jokes by Categories 20 Mixed Animal Jokes Animal jokes are some of the funniest jokes around. Here are a few jokes about different animals. Specific groups will have a fun fact that be shared before going into the jokes. 1. Q: What do you call a sleeping bull? A: A bull-dozer. . 2. Q: What to polar bears eat for lunch? A: Ice berg-ers! . 3. Q: What do you get from a pampered cow? A: Spoiled milk.

Reader's Digest (Reader's Digest USA) - Clip This Article on Location 56 | Added on Friday, May 16, 2014 12:06:55 AM Words of Lasting Interest Looking Out for The Lonely One teacher’s strategy to stop violence at its root BY GLENNON DOYLE MELTON  FROM MOMASTERY.COM PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN WINTERS A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She e-mailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I’d never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but I could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common. Afterward, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are not the most important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community—and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are kind and brave above all. And then she told me this. Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns. Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to request? Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week? You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying. As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children, I think this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those children who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside her eyeshot and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But, as she said, the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper. As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said. Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All