Siri was doing pretty well on the midterm review.
Yeah the Iphone Siri.
True- we’re still not supposed to allow students to use
their cell phones in class. Hey- the city discipline code says they’re not even
allowed to have them in school.
I read in a blog this weekend, that a teacher, I like to
follow, had decided she was going to confiscate them when she saw them. I am not sure about her reality, but I live
in one where the sentence “Let me have
your cell phone,” works about as well as, “Scotty beam me up.”
So most of the time I just beg students to put them away
before the roving assistant principal comes around and then student and me are both
in trouble. But the assistant principal’s
97 year old mother died, and Friday
morning was the funeral- so she and the other administrators were otherwise
occupied.
I had not planned to give a mid-term to the self- contained
class. Of course -that is in direct contradiction to everything I’ve heard in
this week’s professional development about rigor and parallel curriculum - but
so what? I figured I had to give a test
at some point, but I hadn’t actually gotten around writing one when I opened my
email on Monday and saw a note from the assistant principal of the special
education department, that we needed to
bring our midterms to her office to be filed.
I planned to ignore it, but by Wednesday I decided I would cobble one
together. Then as long as I was writing
a midterm, I would write a midterm review sheet.
Friday morning I gave out the review. Most of the students,
I am happy to report, went through our attempt at an interactive notebook
and perused their foldables for the
answers. But not Darian. Darian joined the class late and doesn’t come
to school that often. It interferes with
his selling marijuana business. Darian
often tells me he makes more in week than I do in a month. I have no way
knowing but he does have a much better phone than me. Siri was most cooperative, and generally
faster than even the most complete of the interactive notebooks.
“Siri, what is a complementary angle pair?” Siri responded immediately that it was a pair
of angles that added to 90 degrees, and threw in a picture for good measure?
“Siri, how do you find the slope of a line when given two
coordinate points?” Siri returned the slope formula with instructions on how to
implement it within seconds?”
Darian did encounter difficulties when he asked for the
definition of a linear pair? He couldn’t get Siri to understand his pronunciation
of linear. Siri kept coming back with
some information about ears.
Okay- so I understand that what a good teacher would have
done – would have been to tell him to put his cell phone away and use the
resources in the room, but I was caught up in the efficacy of his plan.
“Why don’t you ask, what’s the meaning of life?” I suggested.
Darian did. Siri told
us that was a good question, maybe the ultimate question, but didn’t get more
detailed than that.
Back to the worksheet.
By the end of the period, Darian had completed the sheet.
Pretty accurately I might add.
The other self-contained geometry teacher stopped by my room
later in the day. She had administered
the exam and was depressed by the outcome.
“I don’t know what the point is?” she asked. I go over the same thing over and over and
over and over again, and they still don’t remember it.”
I know how she feels.
I feel the same way. I’m frustrated too, why do we teach geometry to
people who can’t tell time on an analog clock?
If you can’t manipulate a ruler and a compass do you really need to know
the triangle sum theorem?
We are told that with the right amount of rigor, high
expectations and multiple entry points we should be great geometry teachers.
But can that really be true?
I don’t know---maybe I should just go ask Siri.
(or maybe we should just be replaced by Siri, she never got
frustrated even, when Darien could not
pronounce linear!)
We’ll see how Darian does on the exam tomorrow. The assistant principal is back from the
mourning period. He’ll have to put the cell phone away.
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