I went to a beer festival a couple of weeks ago and someone was handing out cheap gloves. Me, being the school teacher, asked for a few pairs to add to my lame bag of prizes for students. I actually call it my "lame bag prizes." It has free things that I collect and then give away for birthdays, games, and good behavior. Students truly seem to enjoy getting to pick something from my “lame bag of prizes.” They also seem to enjoy the name.
Anyway back to the gloves. I was holding a study group for a math test the next day. I really wanted the students to do well so I offered incentives like pop and chips to come to my study group. I was secretly patting myself on the back when 22 out of 44 students showed up. I mean that is an awesome turn out. I had been working hard for the past three weeks to get them motivated to learn associative, commutative, and distributive properties. They were also learning scientific notation, rounding, and place value. I was pleased with the growth that I was sure they would show.
Back to the gloves. It was the end of the study session. I offered the best behaved and hardest working students a pick at the lame bag of prizes. One of my students looked at me at said, “really we can take these gloves.” I assured him that yes the gloves were fair game. He said, “I’m taking the gloves then. Winter is coming and my hands were cold last year.”
The powers that be are appalled that my 8th grade students don’t know their multiplication facts. Lesson in perspective - 8th grade students who don’t know their multiplication facts are more concerned with keeping their hands warm, taking care of their siblings, and finding food than multiplication facts.
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