Today in first period, I had a way for students share their math exploration projects with each other. I’m on an evaluation cycle this year, so I invited my supervisors to come observe. It was really sweet to see how the kids engaged with each others’ projects and then they gave shoutouts to each other. I was nervous about how it would go, but it was nice. For this class’ homework, they just had to do an “intentional act of kindness” for someone. And so we started class sharing out the kindness. And then we ended class giving shoutouts. It was a nice set of bookends to the 45 minutes.

Not as much work got done as I would have liked… I’ve clearly succumbed to feeling like I can put things off until Spring Break, which is going to make future me mad. And tomorrow is my crazy day, so we’ll see. But for my one good thing, I did an hour long zoom interview with a former student who is now a senior in college. They were writing a research paper for an education class and were getting interviews from teachers to better understand the topic they chose to write on. It was actually nice to be given the time and space to think about and respond to the things they were asking me about. And it was nice to reconnect. So that was a good thing that just happened.

Another good thing is that a student who missed a lot of the year told me after class that they were stressed because they were trying to understand this one topic we’ve been dipping our toes into in our class. So we sat down for 40 minutes at the end of our day, and I said “by the end of this meeting, you’re going to feel so much more in control of these ideas…”. And lo and behold, they felt so much better about the ideas. And that made me feel good, after a really tough few days.

During a planning period, I was looking at some math projects that kids submitted. And one student’s project blew me away. Seriously I couldn’t believe how much time and effort and creativity they had expended to come up with their “math exploration.” So that is going to be my one very good thing for today.

(Another good thing is that I have after school plans with a group of teachers at my school. We haven’t hung out all together as a group in ages, so I’m excited we actually got this to happen.)

Today a lot went wrong. But then in my long band I asked my students to write down everything they could remember about inverses, and they remembered a lot! So I’m going to call that my one good thing.

I had to run after school yesterday so I didn’t get to post my “one good thing.” But as I was grabbing my lunch, a friend told me about an off-Broadway show they just saw and loved. And then I was having dinner with a friend who was visiting town to give a lecture, and when they said they had Saturday free, I looked and there were tickets available to the show on TDF… so we got tickets! I love spontaneous plan energy!

After work, we had our high school faculty “get together” at a brewery near our school. And though I could only go for a little bit of time, it was nice talking with friends and getting a scrumptious cocktail.

The best thing of the day, however? Since we have Friday off of school next week, today technically is our last Friday before spring break. 🙂

I just had a really relaxed day today. In my classes, students just needed time to do practice problems. And so what did we do? Practice problems.

I also just had a really lovely conversation with a colleague in the math office. We were kind of ranting, but also kind of commiserating, and it made me so happy.

I had dinner with a friend yesterday who works at the school. I went to help them process something they were dealing with, and then today they came to my office and said thank you and gave me a MATH STICKER.

My department head came into the math office and gave us all a bar of chocolate from Trader Joes. Why? Because “it’s a day.”

I spent 10 minutes in our new “faculty lounge” during break today with two friends. We never had a space to sit in and relax before, so I’m trying to remember we have this!

I got an email from a student about an approach they were taking on a problem and it was something I occasionally see students do — and though not efficient, it ended up being something I wanted to show the rest of the class. So I planned it into my lesson.

I was having lunch with a friend of mine at school today and they convinced me to go out with them this evening to see some documentary short films.

So many small good things.

I just came from math club. And in math club, I taught the kids how to play the “lowest unique number” game (which I played with the class I was subbing yesterday) and it was so fun. We played a few rounds with no talking. Then we allowed people to talk/lie. Then we allowed people to form alliances and strategize.

Finally I asked what variations we could come up with. And a student came up with this idea.

We play multiple rounds. And you don’t get to the play in any future round if you pick a number that isn’t unique. (I also think the prize for winning earlier rounds should be lower than prizes for future rounds.) We ended up playing this and I really enjoyed this variation! You have to think “short term” versus “long term.”

In any case, math club was fun and my one good thing.

Although it was my crazy busy day (all my classes) I was so overprepared that I didn’t get stressed out! And I even had half of my free period to relax because I had already done so much work yesterday.

We had a firedrill in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful so 20 minutes outside was sublime.

Students publicly shared their second math projects (in one sentence) in our precalculus class, and I’m excited now to look at them! (They were due today.)

My classes went okay today!

In my free time, I created some good extra practice for my Algebra 2 classes — since I think they’ll need to reinforce some of the basic ideas!

My intentional act of kindness was covering a colleagues 90-minute end-of-day class because their kid was sick. I had fun with them! They were good about staying on-task and working hard, and they were helping each other, and I kept on telling them how jealous I was that I didn’t get to be their teacher this year.

The one good thing about today is that it is Friday, and the week is finally over.