The Trouble I Get Myself Into

So, it's the day before Winter Break and the kids are predictably short-fused, short-attentioned-spanned, and just short in general. Unfortunately, since this semester is a week shorter than usual, I didn't have a choice with my geometry classes--they had a test. Which sucks. I hate being That Teacher, giving a test the day before vacation.

The kids did predictably ass-y.

I had even, the day before? gone over one of the test questions, one of the big show-your-work story problem ones, in detail, in excruciating detail. ONe of the students had said, "Why don't you just tell us?" "I am," I replied. "Right now."

Average score on that problem? 2 out of 8 points. I started giving a point just for drawing a picture, I was that desperate.

(Side note: I don't normally teach to the test. This was--hand to God--an accident. I thought the problem I found in the text book was a really good example of a problem that synthesized everything we'd learned in the chapter. Imagine my surprise when that problem exactly was on the test.)

(So I can only imagine how poorly they would have done if we hadn'tgone over it.)

So, in stats, I decided to cut the over acheivers a break. Besides which, the lessons didn't break easily into a test before the break--I would have had to really shoehorn it in, and I was tired of pushing. I can only push one group of the student body at a time. So I decide to show an episode of Numb3rs, the CBS tv show where, with absolutely no awkwardness at all, and in entirely organic and natural ways, math is used to solve FBI cases!!! Heh.

Last year, I'd done the same with Mythbusters. Great show. Unfortunately, I hadn't carefully pre-screened the episode I was going to show. I figured: Discovery channel! Can't be bad! And then I showed them the episode where the two dudes get absolutely plowed and try to beat a breathalyzer. Since it showed they can't beat the breathalyzer, I suppose it was okay, but still: showing adults getting shwasty in a conservative school? Not the best career plan.

So this year, I'm careful. I watch the Numb3rs episode last night to ensure no one is climbing into or out of bed, no teh gay, nothing bad.

Which was a good plan. If only I'd shown the episode I'd pre-screened.

Instead, I pick one where a witness works. In a nightclub. Called The Bareback. So guess where the next seven minutes of the episode take place? In a strip club.

I rock.