i guess i won't be doing that anymore

i had decided to not write about this... until yesterday when noah got home from school and i figured on some level it was too funny not to tell you.

a few weeks ago the first grade teachers needed volunteers to watch their classes so they could attend a 45 minute meeting. i volunteered for Noah's class. really - how much damage could i do in 45 minutes?

once there, the teacher gave me a list of things to do with the kids while she was gone. give them their math test. fine, no problem. help them correct their tests. again, no problem. (one girl did get emotional because another boy accused her of erasing his answers and writing in wrong ones, but i quickly diffused that situation. this teachings stuff is a piece of cake) next, read them a book. loved it - used all my funny voices - got strange looks from the children. and then use the last 20 minutes to teach them fractions. uh, yeah, slight problem - i could never do fractions. algebra, geometry, trig - awesome, loved it, bring it on. but fractions? i knew we were in trouble. not wanting to sound like a moron to the teacher i just smiled as she told me to draw a pizza on the board and take slices away and write the fractions. then she handed me a worksheet to have them do with lots of samples and lines for them to write the fractions. honestly, how complicated could this be? surely, i could teach this simple fraction writing, right?

yeah, not so much.

after, what i thought, were plenty of pizza's and lots of fractions, i figured we could do the worksheet. without really looking at it first, i handed it out to all the children. within about 20 seconds, 10 hands went up. "Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Walker, I don't get it. How do i do this? What does this mean?" trying not to look nervous i told them i'd get to each of them and to work on the top lines till i got there (just counting pizza slices - not too difficult). unfortunately, as i went to the first student and looked at the rest of the worksheet i was completely lost for words. there were all these pizza's, but not with drawn out pieces missing - just drawn showing how many slices were left. some slices thick and some small so there was no telling how many slices there were to start with. how could i teach them a fraction when i didn't have all the information? for the love. so, i did what any good substitute does and i made it up as i went. after a few students, i'd try a different route in answering the questions, so forth and so on. in the end i probably explained the worksheet in 4 completely different ways. i figured this way at least some of the kids would get it right. at one point, i told them to just write what numbers looked good. have i no shame?

needless to say, when the teacher returned i told her that the kids may need a little more explanation on the worksheet, and left it at that.

now, weeks later, i was going through noah's backpack and found that the teacher had finally corrected the worksheets and sent them home. yes, noah missed every single one and had the note 'please redue and return'. my only hope is that i got at least one of my explanations right and not every student failed.

noah and i sat down, reread the instructions in a much calmer quieter setting and finished the worksheet. sadly enough, when he brought the worksheet back home... he still missed two. however, in my defense, it was only because we had drawn in the wrong number of missing slices. going off our pictures, his fractions were right and so i figures we got an A+. i'm quite proud of it.

so, there you go. now you all know that if noah graduates high school and goes on to college, it will have had nothing to do with my tutoring skills.

may we all wish him, and reagan, the best of luck.