Oxygen: Not Just for Sustaining Life!

An hour ago, my head hit KIP 4. KIP is a 1-10 pain scale used by Cluster Headache sufferers. If I reach 4, it's a near certainty I'll make it to 9 or above. This is a disastrous level of pain, certain to ruin the rest of my day. Almost as bad as the pain to come is the fear. I would do literally anything to stop a Cluster Headache attack when it starts. Anything.

The prescription drug Imitrx does a good job of aborting an attack for me, but it takes a minimum of 20 minutes for it to take effect. In that time, a Cluster Headache attack can easily advance from 4 to 10. And the side effects of the drug and of getting that far into an attack pretty much ruin my day anyway.

I've read reports that 70% of sufferers get relief from inhaling pure oxygen when they have an attack. When I suggested this to my doctors, at least one responded, "Oxygen doesn't work, and if it did, it wouldn't be worth it." My neurologist was less negative, but suggested I find out on my own if oxygen would work before he would prescribe it.

A very generous friend who is a firefighter loaned me an oxygen bottle. When I hit KIP 4 tonight, I put it on, administering 10 liters/minute. Nine minutes later, I was 100% pain free.

ONE. HUNDRED. PERCENT. PAIN. FREE.

I hate when people say “It's a {blank} thing, you wouldn’t understand.” However, for Cluster Headaches, it’s true. If you haven’t experienced a Cluster Headache, you just can’t. I don't want to diminish the pain that others have suffered. People with chronic pain suffer their own special kind of hell, and I feel for them. But the pain of a Cluster Headache is indescribable. I can tell you what it's like  — a sharpened, hot fireplace poker is shoved into the top of my left orbital lobe right beneath the eyebrow, and then electric shocks are sent through it — but those are just words. I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone, but I do wish you could choose to experience it, just for a few seconds. It's the only way you would truly understand.

They’re not called “suicide headaches” for nothing.

But just as hard to explain as the pain itself is, I can't express in words how amazing this discovery is. Turns out, all I needed to stop the worst pain known to medical science was a commonly available gas we’ve known about since 1774, prescribed thousands of times daily to patients all over the world. An entire industry has been built around distributing this gas to patients with emphysema, COPD, etc.  

On the one hand, I’m ecstatic to finally discover that oxygen works for me.

On the other, I’m angry. Why did it take so long for this solution to come to me? Why are doctors so resistant to prescribe it? Almost 50% stated they do not believe oxygen works for CH, which runs 100% counter to published medical information. Why are people like me being made to continue to suffer?

When I see my neurologist this week, I’ll demand a prescription for oxygen. I’ll probably have to fight for it. And you had best believe I will.

And I thought *I* was the grumpy old man

So, I'm riding my bike this afternoon. It was a freakishly warm Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and I felt I had to take advantage, despite the fact that I have an awful lot of work to get done (and still do). I was riding, exploring, enjoying the sun, and testing out my new headphones, which are the bone-conduction kind, so they don't block out ambient noise. This is perfect for bike riding in traffic, but it doesn't work quite as well as a safety feature when you like the song so much that you crank the volume way up. This detail is important to the following story, I assure you.

I was riding on a 9-foot-wide path alongside NE 108th Street near my home. This roadway and path are new, and it was my first time exploring this section. Now, I must confess that there is an on-street bike lane on this street, but to my credit, the path here is WIDE. The kind of wide that says, "we expect both pedestrians and bicyclists to use this path." I know that the law expects me to use the street for cycling rather than the sidewalk, but that's when the sidewalk is one walker wide. This path is almost 5 walkers wide. If I have the choice between dancing in the road with the cars and taking a side path that appears designed to accommodate cyclists, I'll take the path. And I was.

Not many people were out (it's January, remember?). I saw an older gentleman with a medium-sized dog coming toward me, and we both gave each other plenty of room as we passed. However, he said something to me as I passed, which appeared to be more than a standard pleasantry. With my headphones up, however, I couldn't hear him. You have to understand that I always try to expect good things from people, so when I stopped, apologized for not hearing him, and asked him to repeat himself, I was shocked at what I heard: from about 15 feet away, he hollered, "Why don't you get in the bike lane where you belong?"

I surprised even myself that my response was so civil: "Why so uncharitable? The path is perfectly wide."

He turned around and continued on his way without another word. I briefly considered yelling something more at him as my mind raced to process what had just happened. The things I considered adding ranged from angry to correctively informative to profane. There's a part of me that desperately wanted to put him in his place, but I feel good that there was a bigger part of me that decided to stay quiet. If I had to guess, his indignation stemmed from the fact that his dog jumped toward me and he blamed me for his dog's lack of control. I'll never know for sure.

Literally the next thing that came on my headphones was Lee Dorsey's "Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky (From Now On)", with lyrics that I always mishear as: "Minor hangups, minor times, but deep inside I'm free." Thanks for reading this far. I just needed to get the encounter off my chest before I could truly be free of it, though I do have to ask one question of my urban-cyclist friends: was I in the wrong? Am I required to use the on-street bike lane when the off-street path appears to have been designed to accommodate cyclists as well?

Anyway, I can't let one grumpy old man get to me. Unless that grumpy old man is me. Let's go ride.

I'm Not Ready

A short time ago — four, or at most five months, maybe — I was at my parents' house with my family. My father was having a hard time with some electronic device. It might have been the VCR, or maybe just the remote control. Anyway, in a moment of snark, I said, "Do you want me to find a 5-year-old to show you how to operate that?" That was funny, of course, because my 5-year-old son was sitting in the next room. I had a 5-year-old right at hand. And I hoped I would forever.

That five-year-old turned 18 years of age today. In nine months he will leave my home to seek his training and make his own life and fortune.

I am not ready. In fact, I'm scared out of my mind. Make it stop. But first, go wish him a happy birthday. He's a good young man, and I love him.

The Mullet Ratio

I was scheduled last week to be observed during an entire lesson by our consultants at Math Solutions as well as my principal and half of my math teacher colleagues -- the other half and I would observe another of my colleagues later in the day. I had just tested my Tech Math class in our unit on triangles, and was ready to start the new unit on ratios/proportions. And since it was the very start of a unit, I could afford to have a little fun with it. So instead of going with my standard powerpoint-lecture-worksheet "intro to ratios/proportions" lesson, I took to Twitter and found something interesting: The Mullet Ratio by Matt Vaudrey (as linked by Dan Meyer).

As the lesson came closer, I was a bit nervous. It's always nerve-wracking to be observed, but I'm additionally anxious about the fact that this is one my most challenging blocks, from a classroom management standpoint. I advocate frequently for teachers to have the right to fire students -- if you aren't willing to be respectful and play along at least a little bit, then you don't get the benefit of being in my class. In this class, after 2-1/2 months, I would have fired no less than 4 students.

Also, I was nervous because I just wasn't fully sold on the lesson. Rather, I wasn't sure if *I* could sell it. It was going to require trying something untested, and the constraints that it would need: small groups, leading the students to construct the math in the fashion I wanted, convincing them to measure each other, finding a way to fill the time if they didn't play along -- were daunting. I was really afraid it would fall on its face. A tryout of the lesson the day before with another class didn't go very well. But I also figured: what's an observation day for, if not to try out new things? So what if the lesson falls flat? At least we'll have a lot to talk about in the debrief.

Here's the lesson in a nutshell: Convince the kids to care about decribing, comparing, rating and ranking mullets, and turn that into a ratio. I introduced the concept by wearing a mullet wig as they entered class (thanks to our awesome LMS Jessica Thomas for coming through with that prop!).

I showed mullet photo examples from Mr. Vaudrey's materials, then showed them side-by-side. This progression is important: They want to think about which person looks better, which you need to carefully steer to which haircut is more "mullety." How do you measure how "mullety" a mullet is? We'll need numbers. We could measure a mullet, but we need to know what to measure. So how do you define a mullet? Easy: Business in the front, Party in the back. We need to measure the business and the party, and find a way to put them together: the Mullet Ratio: Party/Business.

Many important considerations spring from and/or need to be generated in that conversation:

• How do we define business and party?
• How do we measure them consistently? Is that important?
• Does it matter which one goes on top? (Many students fought for party on top, because it physically is. But what about a mullet makes it more mullety, and where does that mean the "party" has to go in the ratio?
• What if you don't have a mullet? Would you still have a mullet ratio? What if you're all-business but no party or all-party but no business? How does that affect your MR?
• What do we measure using (units, tools)?

And more. The deep philosophical point I want to make here is that it's not about the teacher having all the right answers to these questions, although that is rather important to doing a lesson like this successfully. It's much more about steering the students to more valuable questions, which they will desperately want to answer themselves. If you can get them to ask the questions in the first place, you've got them hooked.

One of the comments to come out of the debrief was that these students took a long time to get from "Why are you wearing a wig?" to "So how could we measure business vs. party?" If I recall correctly, our consultant said he timed it at over 12 minutes. I apologized for that, explaining that I didn't want to rush the kids -- I wanted them to get there organically. My epiphany was when they rejected my apology: that was exactly the right thing to do. Too often, either out of our own discomfort at the messiness of discovery or out of top-down pressures to get an inch-deep/mile-wide curriculum covered, we rush through the discovery, and it cheats our kids out of the learning. Quit it. Go slow if they need it.

The students then -- in small groups -- measured mullets on a printout ("But Hillary Clinton doesn't HAVE a mullet!" they cry. "Are you saying her mullet ratio is zero, or are you saying you just don't like that word to describe her hair?") and ranked them. More interesting discussions followed as they tried to reconcile that the results from each group were so different.

Finally, I asked them to measure their OWN mullet ratio, with a partner. I had already taped a paper down to their desks on which to record their value -- it was a sneaky way to justify after-the-fact why they had a seating chart today, when they usually don't. There was more fabulous discussion as they tried to justify their own judgements about their businesses and their parties.

Fun aside: remember, I had 7 adult observers in the room. I found out later that they couldn't contain their adolescent glee each time they heard me utter the phrase, "Measure your business." Each time, I said it completely in innocence, and I may be naive, but I really don't think any of the kids took it in the puerile sense, either. Adults sometimes, huh?

I think, however, that speaks to the engagement that these kids showed, which honestly surprised me. They were too busy with wanting to answer the question to be bothered with being juvenile. They stepped up and made me proud. The examples we lifted up in the debrief were my two long-haired young men, one of whom undid his up-do ponytail and the other unbraided his cornrows solely for the purpose of measuring their own mullet ratios. That's a level of engagement and TRUST in me that I won't soon forget. Another I'll remember for a long time: the young lady who HATES MATH (I know because she tells me every day) who breathlessly explained that ratios are incredibly valuable to an artist, such as when drawing arm length (elbow-wrist is as long as your foot) and eyeball position (half-way down the head, not top-third like most think).

As I've already said, this lesson could have fallen flat on its face. I still think it could have on a different day. But even if it did, it would have been worth the attempt. I know that not every teacher can pull off a self-deprecating, slow, constructivist, deep-conversation lesson like this. But I -- and our kids -- wish more would try.

iPhone or Android?

I was up late during Christmas break and shared this with a friend on Facebook, and thought it might be valuable elsewhere:

It just works.

• Like carrying your music with you? iPhone does it automatically. Android requires that you copy it over manually, and figure out on your own where it goes. 
• Want your messages, contacts, and other data backed up? iPhone does it automatically. I'm not even sure if Android does it at all. 

• Video chatting? Standard on an iPhone (admittedly, only to other iPhone users, but dead simple). Find an app and figure out how to work it on an Android. 

• See an app you like? Hit the app store and try it out on an iPhone. On my Android, no less than 80% of the apps I've installed have either failed to work as advertised or caused some other functionality on my phone to fail. 

• "Oops! I didn't know my ringer was on!" That's a physical switch on the iPhone. It's three screen-button-presses on the Android. 

• Flash content? Doesn't work on either one.
• If you have a problem with your iPhone, you make an appointment at the store on the Plaza and they fix it for you, with a smile. If you have a problem with your Android, you hope you know a geek who's willing to come over and help you with it. There's no official support out there. 

I know it's a cliché, but it's also absolutely true: if you want a phone that just DOES what you expect it to do, get an iPhone. If you want more functionality and a bigger screen, and you're willing to trade off tinkering time and maintenance to get it, get an Android. Neither is "bad," but each has a different kind of customer.

Turns out I'm an iPhone man -- I just had to use an Android for 6 months to realize it.

I AM IRONMAN. Well, not quite...

I finished survived a triathlon today.

Let me back up.

Three years ago, my brother-from-another-mother, Travis Berkley, woke his own inner, sleeping giant and trained and completed a half-Ironman triathlon. I was intensely proud of him for his achievement, and even more so when he kept at it afterwards, training and competing in more races each year. On a lark, he and I entered a duathlon together last year, and he made me look like I was sedentary, lazy, gluttonous, and dipsomaniacal.

Guilty as charged.

A seed was planted in my less-than-fertile brain, but I had a problem that could hold me back from reaching my potential: I couldn't swim. Oh sure, I splash around in the pool, and I can tread water for a bit, but at 42 years of age, I couldn't submerge my face and stroke my way to the other side of the tub, much less across a lake. Yeah, I took swimming lessons as a kid; I was smart enough to fake my way through them.

I entered a super-sprint triathlon last Summer (200 meters in a pool, 8-mile bike, 2-mile run). I stunk up the place, dog-paddling the swim, flatting on the bike, and walking the run. Clearly, I'm capable of more. I needed a goal, like Travis had, so I set one; I announced to everyone that I was going to enter and complete the Jackson County Triathlon, about 9 months away.

What an idiot.

I knew I needed to get swimming help fast, and I found it in the Gladstone Community Center Master's Swim Program, with amazing coach Doug Hayden. He's been amazingly patient with me, and got me actually believe-it-or-not swimming in no time at all. I still suck, but after dozens of hours and mile after mile of laps, I'd reached the point I just might be able to swim 1000 meters in the open water.

Then, the race promoters changed everything right before the race, upping the distance to 1500 meters. And thank God they did, because it required me to change my race from "Olympic" distance to the halved "Sprint" distance (750 meter swim). If not for that, I'm not sure I would have made it.

So, after months and months of working, training, spending (triathlon is NOT a cheap hobby!), and most of all swimming, today was the day. I stood there on the beach with hundreds of other athletes, waiting for the starter's whistle.

Athlete. It feels funny for me to type that. I've never been an athlete. I try to stay active, but I don't think I fit any legal definition of an athlete. Regardless, the whistle went off, we started swimming, then we had to walk a good distance because of the low lake level, and then we began the swim in earnest.

And then all that work, all that preparation, all that training, all seemed to fail me all at once.

I kicked. I flailed. I flopped. I inhaled great, gasping gulps of warm lakewater. Other swimmers bashed into me from all sides. I tried to stay calm; I heard Coach Hayden in my ear: "Relax! Relax!" and I relaxed as hard as I could. But less than 200 meters into the swim (before the first turn) I'm exhausted, hyperventilating, and scared. I heard a swimmer call for help, and a lifeguard boat came to his aid, 20 or so feet from me.

To get the full feel and description of the rest of the swim, please add the following phrase to the end of every sentence for the rest of this post: "I wanted so, so badly to give up."

I mean it. In that moment, with the rescue boat an easy holler away, I wanted nothing more than to raise my hand, get pulled from that terrifying water, and make up some excuse once I reached shore. The boat left before I could resolve to do it, though, and I was stuck alone, gasping, and 50 meters from the next buoy. I pressed on for about half that distance, and it didn't get any better.

Look carefully in the photo above. I'm wearing an emergency life vest on my right hip. A yank on the rip cord and I'd be floating, disqualified, but alive. I ran my fingers over the pouch, found the cord, and thought. I wanted so, so badly to give up.

I don't know why I didn't. I really don't. Maybe it was all the investment I'd made -- in time, in money, in bragging. Maybe I just realized that if I failed at this attempt, I'd be forced to try again next year, and I really didn't want to do that. So I found something deep. Something even I didn't know was down there. I know I'm capable of far more than even I am aware. And by God, I was going to find it. I took my fingers off the pouch, and I never touched it again.

My life's goals narrowed to 50 meter increments. "All I ever need to accomplish is reaching that next lifeguard. I can rest there as long as I need. And I can quit there if I really want to."

"All I ever need to accomplish is reaching that next lifeguard. I can rest there as long as I need. And I can quit there if I really want to."

"All I ever need to accomplish is reaching that next lifeguard. I can rest there as long as I need. And I can quit there if I really want to."

I blew off course more times than I can remember. Lifeguards would holler, whistle, and even splash me in the face when I backstroked to turn me in the right direction. They were all encouraging. One leg after another. Fifty meters at a time. Slow and steady survives the race. Around the halfway point, I was resting on a life belt when a passing swimmer punched me in the jaw. She didn't do it on purpose, of course, and it wasn't that hard a hit. But I'm guessing it was a metaphor for something. I hope someday to figure out what.

And then there were only three buoys left. Two buoys. The lifeguards were swimming in to shore with me. That's right, I was one of the very last people to reach the beach. I could see my beautiful wife, Jayne, waiting for me there. Almost alone, patiently waiting for me to prove heaven knows what to heaven knows who, she was there to greet me. One buoy. I stood and felt sand between my toes. I've never been happier to be on a beach.

I hit T1, did the bike, did the run, yadda, yadda, yadda. In the thinking time I had during the rest of the tri, I decided that I like testing myself, I love to bike, and I've even grown to appreciate running. And perhaps most miraculously, I've come to enjoy swimming as a form of exercise. I hope to keep it as part of my routine. I'm not so sure about the competitive thing, the open-water thing. I'll take some rest time to ponder, but I think I may have just competed in my last open-water event.

After 9 months of work and achieving my goal, it's time to reflect on what I have become, and where I plan to go from here. For all that work, I still don't think I'm an "athlete," by whatever legal definition you may choose. But I am proud of what I've done. I don't plan to stop here; I've always said that one of my driving forces is to become more than I am. I have more proof now of my ability to do that than I've ever had. I wanted so, so badly to give up. But I didn't. I may not be an "athlete," but I am something that no one can ever take away from me:

I am a triathlete.

The resemblance is uncanny.

New Beginnings Compel New Endings

I have tentatively accepted a new job. Pending the dissolution of my current contract with the St. Joseph School District and Benton High School, I will begin a new job as a math teacher at North Kansas City High School.

At present, I'm scheduled to teach Geometry, Algebra II, and a class called Tech Math that will really draw upon my experiences using math in the "real world." NKCHS is significantly closer to my home, which will allow me more time (and gas money) to concentrate on becoming an even better teacher -- as well as allow me more time to concentrate on my family.

I'm excited to be taking on a new challenge (which is, after all, the reason I took on this career in the first place), but be aware that this was a very tough decision for me. I love Benton, love my kids, love my coworkers, and especially love Principal Jeanette Westfall, who saw the potential in me four years ago when I walked away from a good job and said, "Maybe I'll become a teacher. How hard could it be?"

The answer is: very. But also rewarding. And often fun. I have the people at Benton to thank for teaching me that. It is vitally important to me that everyone understands: my leaving the SJSD should in no way be seen as a reflection on Benton High School or its people. It's a great place, run by great people, doing great work, overcoming great challenges. I wish I could stay. Anyone who lives there should be proud to work for such an organization, and anyone who isn't doesn't really understand what it means to teach kids.

I'll miss Benton. And I'll always be a Cardinal.

I'll share more information on my new job when I learn it.

I know I left it around here somewhere...

There's a physics joke making the rounds, which some people are complaining about because they don't get it.

It has led to a joke in physics circles now: The Higgs boson has not been discovered yet, but its mass is 125 billion electron volts.

Here's the equivalent layperson's joke:

"Have you met my brother?"

"Is he about 6 feet tall, dark hair, blue eyes, has a mustache, wears a bowler cap, has two earrings in his left ear, a scar on his right cheek, and walks with a limp?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"I've never met him."

When Hyphens are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Hyphens

Here is the text of a message I sent through the Congressional webform to my representative, the Honorable Sam Graves:

While typing a previous message, I discovered that this form does not allow me to type a double-hyphen {yes, literally, this thing: --}. It pops up a message which states:
"This word is not allowed in our webform, per Congressional regulations."

I'm concerned to think that there really are "congressional regulations" that prevent the use of specific PUNCTUATION! Really? This is what my tax dollars fund? Please explain to me which congressional regulations determine which punctuation is acceptable. I'd be mortified to find that I'm accidentally in violation of law by use of a misplaced comma or (heaven forbid) a godless semicolon.

Must have tried an ellipsis.

I know, it's a small issue. I was originally writing him to express my opinions on the near-debt-default, the S&P downgrade, and who I feel is to blame -- which is the subject of another post -- which I am too angry to ever write.  But then, I don't think it's a small issue. This is exactly the kind of small-minded and wasteful stupidity that begets the small-minded and enormously wasteful behavior that created our financial crises in the first place. We're smart people. Let's start acting like it.

{N.B.: the Congressionally-Prohibited double-hyphen appears in this post a total of three times, because I've always believed that two wrongs don't make a right, but three do.}

Photo credit: Chris Yarzab, Flickr

Dreams Realized

I have a lot of dreams. Some I'll see come true, some I won't. My beautiful wife took the initiative and made one come true for me today.

I've been a NASA geek since I could spell it. I still own the poster at right. No, it's not for sale.

So, when Jayne suggested we take a vacation and view a shuttle launch, she didn't have to ask me twice. Problem 1: they're notorious for delays, and Problem 2: the program is ending. Now, I don't suffer from the depression that many others do over the end of the space shuttle's active life; it has done its job. Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best on Twitter: "Many lament the shuttle era's end. But that's misplaced sentiment. Lament instead the absence of an era to replace it." That's all I have to say about that.

So we made plans, had to break them because of delays, got special invitations, had to decline them because of our jobs and the potential for delays, and finally got the chance this Summer to see the VERY LAST space shuttle launch, that of Atlantis on STS-135. But only if it launches on time. After a car trouble scare, three days on the road, and trepidation over how best to witness this history when "up to a million" other people have the same idea, we found ourselves on Florida's Space Coast waiting for a 5-minute launch window and only a 30% chance that weather would cooperate.

Amazingly, it did.

Honestly, I don't have the words to describe how it felt. It was amazing. It was too short. It was exhilarating but sad. It was loud but not loud enough. It was clear but not clear enough. We were close but not close enough. It was great because it went on time but it was disappointing because I'd have happily come back to watch it again. It was an amazing relief when it achieved orbit safely. I am ecstatic to have experienced it. I feel guilty to admit a small twinge of "is that it?" I could spend hours telling you about the experience. I really don't feel like typing any more inadequate descriptions now.

One thing I didn't do was take pictures or video of the launch. I got great advice from professionals who said, "Don't ruin the experience by stressing over picture-taking details. Just watch. Just experience it." So that's what I did. If you want to see pretty pictures or compelling video of the STS-135 launch, you can find endless resources online. I took pictures before and after, though, and my beautiful wife took a few pictures during the launch, mostly to demonstrate what the experience was like for us; distance, visibility, etc. I'm including the best below. You can click each to embiggenate.

Despite all the conflicted opinions you see above, I can say without equivocation that I'm really, really glad we came to experience this. I love my beautiful wife. Thank you, Jayne.

We came here for the SpaceView Park Tweetup, but it was quite a madhouse. We found more elbow room a block North.

Box at right: Vehicle Assembly Building. Between the boats: Launch Pad 39

For size reference: Jayne at left, VAB at right. We were about 4 miles from the VAB, 7 miles from the pad.

The launch tower peeks out from the right side of a distant hill.

After a scary last-second delay, we have liftoff!

Go, Go, Go!

Just about to punch through the clouds...

And with that, 20-some seconds after liftoff, our viewing is over. But not the event...

Fully 20 seconds after the ship disappeared from view, the sound reached us. And what a sound! After 7 miles, it had diminished greatly. That said, if that sound was "diminished," I can easily believe that the sound alone would kill a person standing in the vicinity of the pad.

The family and I shared a moment I'll never forget.

Is it really over?

 Then we went to lunch (cobbler!), waited for the traffic to clear, and took the long way back to the house. What a day! Thank you both for reading this far!

Number of Living Humans Who Have Walked On Another World

This xkcd almost made me cry:

http://xkcd.com/893/

Even more wow. The alt-text:

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

Am I Weird?

I don't need another article or presentation telling me:

• I should be blogging
• I should be teaching math using video games
• I should be making lessons more relevant
• I should be using technology in the classroom

I need RESOURCES:

• I need more time, so I can blog
• I need video games that teach math and don't suck
• I need lesson resources that use relevant information
• I need technology available in the classroom

Stop giving me so much of the former. Start making with the latter.

Thank you.

Get 'em Moving

Here's a lesson idea. I wish they all came together this easily.

I needed to teach the concept of translation (movement on a grid) and "translation notation," which is the method we use to communicate movement on a grid. So, I moved the chairs out of the way and put a grid on the floor using masking tape. It takes more tape than you think (notice I ran out on the back line).

 

Then, after a short introduction, we played a game. I would call up students one-by-one, record their place in line, and then have them stand at the origin on the grid. I would hit a random number generator (right side of screenshot below) and then have the student move as shown in the translation notation list on the left. In this example, the student would move (number 3, x,y --> x + 2, y – 3) from the origin 2 spaces over (to the right) and 3 spaces down (back). Then pick another student and do it again until the board gets pretty full (about 10 students).

 Here's where it gets interesting. After the board fills, you run down the list of students again, having each perform the new, randomly chosen translation they're given.

• If a student lands on another student's space, the old student is knocked out of the game. 
• If a student lands on or outside the boundary, that's lava. You're fried and out of the game.
• See that pole in the center of the room? That's a shark. Land there and you're eaten, out of the game.
• Last student standing wins (the right to go first in the next round).

You could use a similar grid to demonstrate rotations, reflections, dilations, etc. If I had a precise grid, I'd like to do a distance formula game, where you knock out your opponents by mathematically determining exactly how far it is to your opponent's spot.

If I had the chance to completely redo my room (which is sorely needed; see the stains?), I'd replace the carpet with tile, marked permanently with a grid for use in activities like this. Maybe I should seek a grant?

Anyway, this was a fun and easy way to get the students moving and learning geometry. I'm always on the lookout for more ideas; leave a comment below.

What makes a great teacher, based on RESEARCH

I need to save this long-term, so I'm condensing and linking it here. What makes a great teacher, based on actual research, is different in some respects from what people tend to believe based on their own biases.

Good Teachers May Not Fit The Mold

So what makes a good teacher? Verbal and cognitive ability, Adequate knowledge of their content areas, and Knowledge of how to teach their subject areas (pedagogical knowledge).

What doesn't matter? Traditional licensure or credentials, Advanced degrees, and Extensive classroom experience.

The intangibles: Belief that all students can learn, Belief in their own abilities, and Ability to connect with students

It really is a pretty awesome article linked above, you should read it. 

Reason #4,625 Why My Son is a Better Man Than I Am

After several years of planning, preparation, practice, and hope, my son's lifelong dream of making the 8th grade basketball team failed to come to fruition last Thursday. Three days of tryouts ended in a last-second cut, and a little boy came home devastated.

People that age shouldn't have to experience that kind of pain.

I've learned a few things about the genius that calls himself the coach of this particular team, and from what I've learned, my son is probably better off not being on the team. I'm absolutely certain that my son is better off not being in this particular coach's classroom. I'm saddened and disgusted that this is so often the case in today's school world. Actual statistics: in the four days since practice started, two of the young men who made the team have already been cut from the team. Obviously, Mr. Genius knows how to pick winners.

Anyway, only a day after missing the cut, my son was offered a job as a manager for the girl's basketball team, with a coach that he knows and respects. He took the job, and appreciates the opportunity. He's been to each practice, done everything he's been asked to do, and presented himself in every way as a valuable member of the team.

I offer this as evidence of reason #4,625 why my son is a better man than I am. Yes, age 13 was 28 years ago for me, and I've never tried out for a sports team in my life. But I can say with relative certainty that if I had been put into the same position -- if I had been hurt and disappointed and discarded in the same way that my young son just was -- I guarantee you my response would have been far less mature. I would probably have walked away from the sport altogether. The situation would almost certainly have soured my friendships with the players who made the team. And I would have channeled all my youthful energy into figuring out how to sneak a large, frozen fish into school so I could stash it above the ceiling in the coach's office. Yeah, I was a pretty mean kid.

From kdt on Flickr

It took me a LONG time to grow up. I can't tell you how happy I am to see so much proof that my son is a better man than I am.

So the boy told me that he still wants to play basketball. He thinks he's got it in him to make the freshman basketball team. If he's serious, we've got about 360 days to prove Coach Genius wrong and earn his spot. It's not going to be easy, but if you're betting against this kid, I think you may not understand how this game is played. Looks like we're in for a busy year.

The most amazing line from Jon Stewart's Rally

Yeah, I never blog, sue me.
I watched a good bit of Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" yesterday, and wished like heck that I could have gone. I've said before that I think Jon Stewart is not just one of our more important living pundits, I think he's one of our more important living journalists. One of the reasons I believe that is because he truly understands the Zeitgeist, as proven by his calling this rally in the first place, and then further proven by making this statement in his closing remarks. Maybe not so much to you, but to me, these words spoke volumes of emotional truth. I'm recording them here so I don't lose them, copied from CNN.com:

Most Americans, he said, don't live their lives solely as Republicans or Democrats, but as "people who are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it."
Some may paint the nation as fragile and torn by hate, he said, "but the truth is ... we work together to get things done every damn day."
"There will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land," Stewart said. "Sometimes it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together."

I was looking for a more direct quote, but then I realized I've got S#!T to DO. Thank you for working to restore my sanity, Jon Stewart.

Welcome to Denver! ISTE 2010

Well, we've made it to Denver, and tomorrow starts the Edubloggercon sessions that precede ISTE 2010. Denver is a beautiful city, and I'm really excited to be here, but also excited to learn from some of the best minds currently leading the edges on Classroom 2.0. Also excited to be here with a devoted and skilled cohort of my colleagues. Also excited that my family will be joining me here next week. Also excited that I've got my bike with me here in Denver, and an alarm set for an early ride. Let the fun begin.

Friz

Have you ever played Friz? It's joyous fun. I wonder if I could get a game together in Denver? Anyway, that's how you blog a photo.

Posting from my phone

In case I want to be able to post RIGHT AWAY, I'm testing the e-mail link capability. Unfortunately, it looks like I can't attach a photo!

Late June, ISTE, Reset!

For those that have been wondering, it's been an AWESOME Summer so far, waking up every day to hit the RESET button.

In two days, I head to Colorado -- where I WILL live someday -- for the ISTE Conference. I plan to use this blog to record the cool stuff I see. Question: how do I blog easily from my iPhone???

Hard Reset

I had a strange occurrence a couple of mornings ago. I haven't been sleeping very well, and -- par for the course -- I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep. I'm sacrificing sleep for this blog post as we speak, in fact. Anyway, my alarm went off at 5:40, as it does every morning. Only, when I heard it, I was struck by a strange notion; I believed that the only way to get the alarm to truly turn off was to remove its power. As I didn't want to wake anyone in the house (a particular concern of mine), it seemed totally logical to me that I needed to do more than just turn off the alarm. I needed to unplug the clock.

So that's what I did.

Then, I laid back down, fully intending to get up when my body had properly acclimated to wakefulness, as I so often do. And usually, I can do so in about 5 minutes. But not this time. This time I fell back to sleep pretty hard, and almost certainly would have overslept, but for one saving factor; my alarm clock has a battery backup. At 5:49, it dutifully (though slightly more quietly) went off again.

This time, I was able to rouse myself into my senses well enough to not only actually rise from bed, but also plug the clock back in and head off to the shower, with gratitude for modern technology.
What does it all mean? Not much, other than that I need to get to bed at a more decent hour, and procrastinate a little less so my frazzled brain isn't trying so desperately to find solutions to phantom problems. But I found a parallel in this freaky event; my stress-swollen brain convinced my sleep-schizoid body that I needed to perform a "hard reset" on my clock in order to continue its proper operation. Both my brain and my body -- IMHO -- need the same "hard reset" to get back to proper operation themselves. I'm a better teacher now than I was a year ago, and I firmly believe that my improvement as a teacher is on an exponential track (if I'm 75% better than I was last year, then a year from now I'll be 150% better). But before I can make that quantum jump, I need a hard reset.

And I'll get it, in 10 school days from now.

Obama may want to change us all over to year-long schooling, and it just might be better for the kids. But I sure hope he doesn't succeed in making it happen until I'm done improving as a teacher.

Just finished up the first of the last 10 classes

Just finished up the first of the last 10 classes I'll be teaching to my 1st Hour Honors Geometry class. It's been a challenging, sometimes painful year, but through it all, these kids have been my mental salvation. They're intelligent, usually engaged, and they appreciate this class, this opportunity, and me. They have their own sets of problems, but they're the kind of problems that good people find a way to overcome. And these are all good people.

So if you ever run across this blog, I want to thank you: Abbie, Amber, Cherokee, Clayton, Hannah, Jesse, John, Josh, Landon, Shantel, Skiler, and Trevor. You've kept me sane. You're the reason I became a teacher. I wish you all the best on your journey.

To blog is to teach yourself what you think

I haven't been "blogging" for a long time, mainly because I didn't have the time. I used to blog all the time, although at the time I didn't call it blogging, it was just posting to sites like the EarthRiders forums. Though technically that's a forum discussion, there are several posts back there in the archives that are indistinguishable from blog posts.

Then I changed careers, and boy, what a change! It has been an exceptionally challenging two years. Which, of course, was exactly what I was seeking when I changed. I had hoped to record my thoughts, hopes, and dreams as I went along the way, but that just wasn't realistic. I know a teacher (through Twitter) who just went through his first year, who's finishing up his Master's program, and who blogged and chatted and maintained community social media forums throughout that first year. The guy must have been on meth or something. I can't fathom it.

However, I'm in a much more comfortable place now. I still have a long way to go to be a good teacher. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be "good." But I think the next logical step, now that I'm two years into this grand experiment, is to teach myself what I have been thinking since August, 2008. Here's where I start.

I have grand dreams to create a video library of lessons, partly so I can get out -- at least a little bit -- of the reteaching business. ("Missed class? No problem. The lesson is on the website, go watch it, come back if you have any questions.") I know; "But Michael, that's been done, a thousand times before." I know because I've gone and looked at all one-thousand of them. And they all suck.

I want to make lessons that don't suck. Not just lessons, but resources for my constructivist learners to use in their knowledge construction.

Before I can do that, I have to start out making lessons in the first place! The problem; it's time-consuming, I don't have the resources I'd hope for, and (most importantly) I'm an inveterate procrastinator. I have a couple of examples of things I've done before, both of which were extremely freshman efforts. I can do WAY better... if I'd get off my butt and get through the freshman efforts and make it a regular thing. I'm thinking I need a partner to get me off that procrastinating butt. Any volunteers?

See Space Shuttle Discovery Land

Tomorrow morning, Monday, April 19th, Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, ending its penultimate mission. The whole shuttle program is scheduled to end with this year.

In a fortuitous twist of fate, the landing path it will hopefully take travels VERY near the KC/St. Joseph area. I highly recommend you try to catch it. I'll help. If you're going to be in St. Joseph tomorrow morning, just meet me in the Benton High School parking lot by 7:30 am. But don't be late. I'll probably be standing in the bed of my truck, looking for a better view. Here's what it looked like according to a photographer in Houston in 1999:


N.B.: Everything below should be prefaced with "I hope." All of this only happens if they choose to GO with the De-Orbit Burn (DOB) at 6:43 am. I'll tweet whether they do or don't. If they don't, never mind everything. They very well might not, because weather at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility is not currently forecasted to be favorable. That said...

If the DOB happens, here's what we would see in St. Joseph (where I'll be). At 7:31 and 10 seconds in the morning, it should just be coming into view at 331 degrees (Northwest), elevation 10 degrees above the horizon, 206 miles away. At closest approach at 7:32:11, you'll see it at 66 degrees (ENE), 33 degrees above the horizon (90 is straight up), at a distance of 69 miles.

In Space Shuttle terms, that's close enough to reach out and touch. By the time it disappears in the SE, it will have been in our view up to 4 minutes, though it may only be visible for part of that. At this point in its travel, it should be dragging a pretty spectacular plasma trail across the sky. Again, no guarantees; it's forecast to be cloudy overnight here, clear tomorrow. Will it be clear by 7:30 am? God only knows.

KANSAS CITY: Almost the same. Elevation will only reach 25 degrees for you guys, though, which should still be very visible.

COLUMBIA/JEFF CITY: Get out of bed, Harrison. From Jeff City, highest elevation will be 71 degrees (it'll feel like it's right overhead) and distance of 39 miles. I envy you. Start looking at 7:30:23 to the NW. When it leaves, it'll be 7:36:01 to the SW.

Want to figure it out for yourself? Here's the site I use. I can help you with it, just E-mail me at gier.michael@gmail.com or hit me on Twitter.

In case you're still wondering, N.B. stands for "nota bene" and is Latin for "note well" or "please note." It's really common in Europe.

What cancer can go do to itself

I said it on Twitter, but I figured I'd copy it here, too. Whatever it takes to put cancer on notice:

I learned yesterday that cancer has touched someone in my life again. It was not invited. It is not welcome. And if my friends have anything to say about it, they and their little girl will beat it down as soon as humanly possible.

I hate cancer. I hate it. If cancer were a man, I would kill it in the most painful, sadistic, humiliating fashion I could imagine... and my imagination is pretty vivid. I would make cancer look me in the eyes as I took its life.

I have a lot of reasons I became a teacher, but one of them is this: I educate kids because I want someday -- someday soon -- to live in a world free of cancer. I want one of my kids to write me one day and say, "Mr. Gier, I just made cancer my bitch."

%$*# you, cancer. %$*# off and die.

Eyes Past Print

My school does a literacy strategy called "Eyes Past Print with Voice Support" (EPP). We are told that research shows people need to read for 20 minutes a day in order to maintain their level of literacy. We are afraid many of our kids get far less than even that. In order to maintain them and also to model reading from (hopefully) fluent readers, each teacher reads to his or her students for a minimum of 5 minutes per class period, simultaneously providing the text for the students to read along. My instructional coach described the process in some detail here.

I'm a math teacher. It's hard to find "math" reading that is interesting/engaging for anyone, let alone high schoolers who have a vested interest in demonstrating their boredom to you. What's not so hard: finding cool stuff that was written by people who had to use math when they did whatever it was they're writing about. Example:

Phil Plait, physicist, astronomer, and blogger, writes a blog for Discovery Magazine. A recent post, Two Moons Circling, offered and discussed an amateur astronomer's picture-set of one of Jupiter's moons passing in front of another from our Earthly vantage point. It truly is a remarkable series of pictures, with expert commentary by Dr. Plait. I found it because I follow Dr. Plait (BadAstronomer) on Twitter.

In my world, however, it takes more than just reading. Go read just the first paragraph of Two Moons Circling. I'll wait ... I guarantee you that first paragraph is enough to tune out 90% of high schoolers in any setting. The information is necessary to the story, but there are no explosions. Snooze.

So, I read the first paragraph quickly and then stopped. Then, I stepped into the middle of the room, right among the chairs. I told them to assume I was the sun and they were all planets and moons orbiting me. I admitted to them that I liked the idea of being the center of everything they've ever known. I showed them how the planets' and moons' orbits are not shaped like a sphere, but rather like a disk. I named a student and called him Jupiter. I named another two and called them Ganymede and Io. Through exaggerated hand movements, I demonstrated how the two rotate around the one, again on the same "disk." Then I read on.

The rest of the blog post discusses the interesting things to notice in the picture, then saves the best, perhaps most-relevant factoid for the end: the photos were taken from hundreds of millions of kilometers away (600 or so, actually). Yes, I had to convert that to miles for them. That's okay. I finish by telling the kids that if they want to see Jupiter for themselves, all they have to do is walk outside at night. At present, the giant planet is the brightest object in the Southeastern sky in the early evening. With a pair of binoculars, you can see the moons described in the blog post.

Why did this work? Because although the reading depended on math for its existence, it didn't write about math itself, which is -- frankly -- boring. Also because there was a picture to go along with the reading. Also because this is a subject I am passionate about. But finally because -- using the previous two becauses -- I succeeded at least a little bit in making it relevant to them. "You, you, and you are the planets and moons." "An amateur, like you, took these pictures." "You can go see these things for yourself."

Many of our teachers read from novels for their EPP, and more power to them. I don't think I can pull that off. I am a fluent reader, of course, but my passion is not novels. My passion is knowledge -- about the heavens, about our physical world, and about human nature. Sometimes, I figure out how to make those things about math, at least a little bit. Any chance I get to share that knowledge with these kids is a good day.

*Note: the photo above, credit NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, is not the photo described in the blog post, but does show the shadow of Jupiter's moon Europa passing over the gas giant. It's a pretty cool picture, too.