Calculators are Magic!

School has been in session for one week today. This time last year I was in a daze, a fog of insensibility brought on by the overwhelming realization that I don't know anything! It's one thing to go to school and earn a degree, but try teaching children - of any age - something...anything. Maybe it's just me, but the more I teach, the more I have to come to terms with my own ignorance. It's quite humbling, actually.

But today was a little different. Today I actually taught my algebra 1 students something: scientific calculators do fractions. I had taken for granted that they knew how to use their calculators. "I wish we could do fractions on this thing," one girl said. "You can," I said, half thinking she was making a very weird joke. I guess I thought people were born knowing how to use a calculator.

I know it's just a little thing, but the light bulbs that went on for those kids when they realized how to enter "five-ninths" into their calculators without having to make it a decimal was oddly rewarding for me. "This thing was SO worth six bucks!" according to one boy. Yes, that was my triumph of the day. Now if only I could get that to happen with an actual lesson...