In Which I Find Myself Feeling Various Levels of Disturbed with Myself

So a little while back there was some facebook confusion over whether I did or did not actually have an unpleasant and (these days . . . and in this country . . . ) uncommon disease. No, I did not have dysentery. And clearly I did not die from it. Just a random Oregon Trail reference. :-)


Anyway.


Part the First: There is a class that did some sort of project on animals. And they made posters. And hung them up in the hall for everyone to see. They're very interesting to read . . . but I have to admit the first time I saw them it occurred to me that the mythological guardian of the Greek Underworld was a bit of an odd choice. Especially for second graders.

So after walking past this poster half a dozen times a day for a couple of weeks it finally hit me - "ZEBRUS" means "zebras" . . . not "Cerberus."

In my defense, the Z is backwards. So it looks kind of like "SEBRUS." And I just read the last three Percy Jackson books. I'm kind of in a Greek mythology state of mind.

Part the Second: So. Fourth grade. Math groups. There are a couple of questions that cause problems every week. Like this one - the worksheet says "What is the sum or difference?" Then they look at the chart and there are squares divided into hundredths (a word I hadn't heard SINCE fourth grade until this year!). And it'll be something like 1.42 + 1.56 or 1.91 - 1.33 or something. Point being that sometimes it's addition and sometimes it's subtraction. But what happens is this - there are a few kids who read the question . . . as far as "what is the sum" and then add them up. Even if they're supposed to subtract. I tell them the answer is wrong. The add them again. And get the same answer because they did the addition correctly. And it gets repeated a couple of times. They start getting frustrated because they keep getting the same answer and I keep saying it's wrong and I can't figure out why it NEVER occurs to them that maybe their addition isn't the problem. Finally I tell them to reread the question and look closely at the chart and usually that solves things, but sometimes I have to completely spell it out for them. And I find myself using the line "You have to actually read the question. You can't just do what you think it's asking, you have to do what it actually says to do."

I got the weirdest sense of deja vu the first couple of times I said that. Monday I realized why.

Great merciful crap, I'm turning into my parents!!!! AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE KIDS YET!!!!!!!!!!!

P. ost S. cript
Talk about a slow reaction . . . hee.