Advanced Placement in the Looney Bin

Good God. I mean, seriously, Good. God.

I was feeling bad with how apeshit crazy I was feeling about the stats class until I talked to a teacher, a fifteen-year vet, about her year last year, her first teaching AP Psych.

"I was in the principal's office every day in tears, saying I quit, I can't take this!" she said.

Ahhhh, validation.

It's week two, and the class? She is CHAOS. I'm maybe half a day ahead of my kids, every day having to leave class because I forgot this thing, or maybe that thing, or sweet jeebus, something else. Today, there were kids who, instead of working on this chapter, were still finishing the homework that was due yesterday. The homework they have a quiz on tomorrow. Because they couldn't figure out their calculators.

Now, given, the calculators are way more complicated than they were in the Goode Olde Dayes, but I had written out the steps for them along these lines:

If you want to create a list, first push the { key.

Now push the first thing you want in a list.

Now push a comma.

Repeat those last two until you come to the last number you want in your
list.

Now push the } key.

To save the list, push the STORE key.

Type in the name you want to give to your list.

Push ENTER.

This is how complicated the directions were. And people were still, "I couldnt' do the homework last night because it said error!" and when I looked at their calculators, there was all this extra STUFF that they kept typing in. THESE are the kids who plan to take the AP test? Sometimes, my planning just doesn't matter.

It's frustrating because the math isn't hard, and really, the calculator isn't that hard either--because the directions are right there, step for step! What the hell is going to happen when the math does get hard?

I might die. That seriously is what might happen.