In the Trenches

If you ever want to be humbled, become a high school math teacher. I guarantee you, every time you have a good day, a day where you feel like a great teacher, a teacher the kids respect and like, one they can listen to and learn from, you’ll have a day that knocks you right back into the trenches.

I spent twenty years of my life convincing 15-year-olds in Burleson, Texas, they wanted to learn math. Some days were more successful than others.

What do I mean by that? Read on to see the amazingly brilliant results of my fabulous teaching as we learned the prefixes used in Geometry.

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Use a dictionary to write a definition for each of these words. Include a number in your definition.

Pentathalon – a five-inch snake that can chase you across the street Well, the five part is correct.

Hexagram – six times a gram Erm, the six part is correct.

Octopus – anything suggesting an octopus That was helpful.

Using a dictionary and the list of prefixes, write the definitions of 20 words that have number prefixes.

Octopus – a see-creature having 8 testicles I beelieve your English teacher finds your spelling skills challenging. Oh, and I surmise our octopus is popular.

Dukes – put up your dukes (2 hands – fists) Sigh . . .

Sextuplets – 6 kids (I would shoot myself) Actually, I tend to agree with this one.

Century – a period of 200 years I guess we can all put our 4 cents’ worth in, then?

Solomon – bible king of Israel noted for his wisdom Um, and this fits in this exercise because there was only one of him?

Centipede – animal that is a centi Er, that is rather unenlightening

It should be possible to answer all these questions without the use of a dictionary.

A man with one wife is called a monogamist, a man with two wives is called a bigamist, and a man with many wives is called a polygamist. What could you call a man with six wives? A player Glad to see the younger generation hasn’t lost respect for the sanctity of marriage.

Two babies born together are called twins, three babies are triplets, and four babies quadruplets. What might you call ten babies born at one time? Ouch Well, that’s hard to argue with.

An octogenarian is someone who is eighty years old. What could you call someone who is sixty years old? Really old I beg your pardon?

In the Olympic Games, the Triathlon has three events, the Pentathlon has five, and the Decathlon has ten. What would you call a contest of seven events? Polythlon We do a little bit of everything here.

An octahedron is a solid with eight faces and looks like a diamond. A tetrahedron has four triangular faces and looks like a pyramid. A hexahedron has square faces. What would it look like? Sex I beg your pardon?

If a tripod has three legs, a quadruped has four legs and a hexapod has six legs, then a man could be called a . . . unipod. Arghh…I guess me peg leg don’t count, eh matey?

So, yeah. You probably have days that make you question your life choices, too.

What am I doing here?

I’m not making a difference.

I’m going to go work in a bank.

But we can come back the next day and try again. And what is humbling is that my students don’t hold it against me when we don’t have the best day. Every day is a new day. For that, I’m grateful.