OUR HERO's lunch is interrupted on a daily basis by what most would deem a manifestation of the "infinite monkeys with typewriters" phenomenon: twelve Honduran children shouting in unison: "VICTOR HUGO! VICTOR HUGO! VICTOR! HUGOOOO!!!"
What was not, in fact, Notre Dame's new football cheer, was a confluence of events precipitated by the sugar addicts' weakness for Victor's insanely sweet juice. Our Hero tried the tamarindo variety for a week, and was forced to kick the habit after calculating 20 Fibonacci numbers and demonstrating Euclid's Golden Ratio on his arm with what turned out to be a non-erasable marker.
Speaking of the maths, February is Math Month here at Sunshine Bilingual School. This came about after a few comments of this sort...
"5 squared... uh... 10! No, 2! 5?"
"But do YOU know... uh... 7 times one hundred!? Hah!"
"3 minus 7? You can't do that!"
"But where did the plus go?"
began to require responses of this sort...
"But where did your plus go?"
"Yes, the zeroes matter."
"6 times 3 has never been negative, nor a fraction. Try again!"
"No, no, no, it's an X not a times! Nope, not a plus either!"
which led to a diagnostic test. Then some crying. Then, Math Month! We're starting with prime factors of numbers, and hope to work our way up to word problems by the end of the month. Variables can wait until we have a handle on non-fingertip addition.
Best quote of (pre-Math Month) math?
Me: "The X-axis is independent of the Y-axis. That means that the two numbers that make the point do not affect each other. (-3,5) means 3 left, and 5 up. Got it?"
Best Math Student in 7th grade: "Yeah, Teacher! It's like seahorses, right?"
Me: "It's exactl-- what?"
Student: "You know, the male seahorse, he, like... he has the babies, right?"
Me: "Kind of?"
Student: "But the FEMALE seahorse, she makes the babies. With the male. She has them first, but then he has them again, you know?"
[Other students stare. One dutifully begins drawing a seahorse in her notes.]
Me: "... Have you ever read Sideways Stories from Wayside School?"
Monday, February 8, 2010
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