A real teacher!

Me: “I want you all to know that when I push you to move faster getting ready between subjects, I don’t do this because I don’t like you. You are actually my favorite class in this school”.

Chorus of students: “Oh, Mr. Tom. We understand”. “Mr. Tom, it’s ok, we will move faster” “We know Mr Tom. It’s ok”

Me: It’s just that if we waste 3 minutes every time we move from one subject to the next, that is really me failing you.

Students: “No, Mr Tom, you could never fail us” Mr Tom, we understand” “Mr Tom, we all like you because you make learning fun for us”

Teachers experience many sweet moments during the day.

Every child in the school knows me, because when I subbed/floated, I was in and out of every classroom.

Four days earlier with a kindergartner

She: Mr. Tom, are you 100 years old?

Me: Um… what.. 100?…..Oh no, not even close

She: Are you 99?

Me: Realizing that if she started counting down, she would arrive at my number pretty soon, and it would be difficult to lie to her, I patted her on the head and fled the area.

Two days later with a first grader:

He: Hi Mr Tom, why do you talk funny?

Me: “Um…. me? Funny?” I think I mumbled something like:  “Boston Strong, dude. Represent” I then patted him on the head and got the heck out of there. 

One normal piece of letter paper, torn in two, can be rearranged to form a parallelogram and a trapezoid. Both have two pairs of congruent angles. Both have 2 obtuse and 2 acute angles. The area of each is equal, and this equals the area of the original piece of paper. The area formula for the parallelogram is b x h. But the area formula of the trapezoid is (b x h)/2 x h. You can actually deduce the trapezoid area on your own just by knowing it must equal the area of the original sheet of paper – 8.5 x 11.

My 5th graders, who I push every day to move faster and be ready in less than 60 seconds, know all this. They know it because their teacher taught them. Me. A real teacher.