Ten Days Left in School and My Class is Getting Smarter and Smarter and Smarter

When I walked the four miles to school today, everything was perfect. A perfect breeze. A perfect blue sky. Perfect songs from the song birds in the perfect trees full of perfect blossoms and perfect leaves. The perfect springtime temperature.

School began perfectly too. No trouble on the playground. A great pick up basketball game by the hoops. A fantastic game of tag by the slides. Some of the best double Dutch jump roping you ever saw. There was even a contingent of seventh graders discussing trigonometry and their class essay assignments.

Wow.

We started the day with stories out of character education books, went to writing our reflections of the year, did some silent reading, a fraction review, got to take a brief and very easy twenty minute recess, and then we played around with K’nex to discover the properties of the right triangle.

“More trigonometry?” one of my students asked.

“Not the complicated trig we have been working on. This is simpler,” I answered.

“You’re joshing us.”

Joshing? I haven’t heard that word in a long time.

“No,” I answered, “you’re brilliant. It’ll be a no-brainer.”

We then went into the Pythagorean Theorem and they stayed with me through the entire process. Everyone in the class did all of the ten problems. Everyone was present today and everyone earned a hundred.

Now there’s nine days of school left. I don’t know. The way my class is cookin’ with grease maybe we should petition the Board of Education to extend everything a few more months.

Did I actually write that?