Sometimes I wish that as a teacher I got paid by the hour. Yesterday morning started off with an 8:00am advisory team meeting (as does every Tuesday). An hour later, classes began. After a full day of classes ending at 4:00pm, the faculty had to stay another four and one-half hours. The reason for staying late was that it was our school’s first PTSA meeting of the year, immediately followed by open house. So after sitting through a arduous meeting where no one spoke loud enough to be heard, I had to entertain the parents as they cycled through their children’s classes.

Honestly though, I really do like meeting the parents of my students. It usually gives me quite a bit of insight into what makes them the way they are. Some students look just like their parents, some talk just like their parents, some smell like their parents, and some act like their parents.

Even though I enjoyed meeting the parents that made it out for open house, it was still a darn long day.

Here’s to punching the timeclock!

The last post contained a fairly easy problem. Now here’s one that is a bit more challenging.

In the figure below, a circle with a center at O and a radius of 4 is inscribed in triangle ABC. Point D is a point of tangency. Segment AD has a length of 8 and segment BD has a length of 6. Find the lengths of the three sides of the triangle — without using trigonometry (sine, cosine, tangent).

[This problem was posed to some mathematics teachers by Victor Katz at the San Antonio national conference of the NCTM.]

Here’s a problem that is a good one to give your Algebra 2 students (or anyone who’s interested).

Find the two distinct numbers whose product, quotient, and difference are all equivalent.

[in layman’s terms] Find two different numbers that, when you multiply them, you get the same thing you do when you subtract them or divide them.

I’ll not give the answer in this post. You give it to me in a comment.

If you’re one of my regular readers (assuming I have any), you might have noticed a couple changes to the site. First, the title has changed from Naught Much to Naught Much.com. That’s right, you can now access this site through its very own domain at www.naughtmuch.com.

Second, there are two new pages: About and Contact. You can find these links at the top navigation bar. In the About page, you’ll find links to some places that describe me.

Son

Daughter

Mr. B is just your average

INTJ
Father
Husband
Kayaker
Carpenter
Mathematician
Novice blogger
Statistics teacher
Fifth-year teacher
Geometry teacher
Algebra 2 teacher
Follower of Jesus
Coffee drinker
Southerner
Landlord
Jazz lover
Hasher
Tutor.

Every once in a while, my students will do something that reminds me that yes, they really are capable of deep thought and introspection. On Wednesday of this week, after a Paideia seminar discussion on Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I asked them to take some time and identify some habits that they personally need to develop in order to become more effective young people. I was generally expecting shallow responses and not much thought to be put into it. As I watched them write out their thoughts, I could tell that there was some real cogitating occurring. After I collected and read their responses, I was pleased by what I read.

Here are a few excerpts:

• The trait that I really need to work on is being honest. Honesty is very difficult for me because I’m always scared of what others will think or say about it. The only sure thing I can think of is just to say what I think or how I feel now matter how scared I am of somebody’s reaction.
• I need to be more motivated toward my goals. I could do this by thinking about how my goal is worth the effort to get there.
• I need to be more self-confident. When I do something good, I could tell myself “good job” and if I do something bad, just say “I’ll work on it” instead of telling myself that I can’t do something because in the end I know that I can and I will.
• I need to have better self-esteem. Women don’t like guys with low self-esteem.
• I need to be more patient. To be more effective in this area I can understand other people, and understand that not everything I do in my life will be something I choose to do.
• The habit I need is focus. I chose this because in school I tend to drift off and at home I tend to drift off. Even in my sewing class I tend to drift off. I can get better at this by asking my friends to stop me when I get off task.
• I need to be more proactive. I should create opportunities for myself to get something done instead of waiting for an opportunity to com out of nowhere.
• I need to be a more grateful person. To develop this skill I could become more courteous to people and thankful for the things I have and not the things that I want.
• The main trait that I need to obtain in larger quantities is patience. I need to be more understanding and use a few seconds to solve problems with patience rather than trying to solve problems by harsher means.

[off-topic post] Last night, my friend Mike and I had the opportunity to have dinner with Andrew Jones of Tall Skinny Kiwi, one of the foremost “leaders” in the emerging church movement. We had some good barbeque (as you can see) and then headed down the street to a bar where a couple of guys, Josh and Nick, interviewed Andrew for their podcast. Also there for the interview was Olgavaro Bastos of Tribal Generation. It was so inspiring and challenging to see how God is working to bring change to the church all over the world.