I just spend the better part of an hour skimming through/reading Zachary’s blog. I’m sure I’ve read it before. I made it to the end (read:beginning) where he discusses his want for a satchel because it will make him into Indiana Jones or some such other awesome logic and I know at some point before he started his student teaching I read that. He just got on twitter which if you are a math teacher (or teacher candidate) you should do and it was neat to be reminded to read his stuff. I just totally get what he is feeling 90% of the time. Although I am sure he is doing a better job than me. He is certainly a better writer.
It’s nice to read a blog about someone going through the stuff I went through last year. (I almost just wrote about a kid then I realized I both had no idea how old this guy was and that at most he was 2 years younger than me but probably not.) It’s also nice to think back on student teaching and remember how good I thought things were going. Where student teaching was a time of hoping and feeling awesome my first year teaching has not been quite the same. So, nostalgia I welcome you with open arms and Zach, welcome to twitter.
I’m at my parents house by the way. Which is food central. All I do is eat, hang out with my parents and friends, and nap. It’s just about the best thing ever. I go back to Northern California tomorrow and I am feeling refreshed and excited. I haven’t read a math book all weekend. I haven’t talked much beyond Harry Potter and people’s social lives and damn it’s been nice. I don’t know what I am teaching yet and to be fair I don’t care. I will get my life together when I get home and that will be fine.
Lastly, a couple thoughts on Project Euler. It’s seems as though our “nerdom” through the example of Kate has dived pretty throughly in to the Project Euler questions. Some people are doing them by hand, some in excel and many with varying degrees of computer programing. What I totally dig is that they are math for the sake of math. They are not “psuedocontext” (dear dan, pretty sure you don’t read this anymore but this psuedocontext thing is a neat kick you’re on. from, me.) because to be fair they have no context at all. I am still a little burnt out on math from my senior year of college but I am digging slowly working through them in my spare time. Packing my apartment up next week is going to be seriously set back by this but it’s worth it. Math just because math is fun and learning just because learning is neat is pretty much the reason I wanted to teach.
Oops one more thing:
I am thankful for you. Happy thanksgiving.
a brand new line. 
I swear, my risk of heart attack would be 70% lower if publishers would commit themselves to “math for math’s sake” as the default and then, only if they’re positive they won’t eff it up with pseudocontext and pseudo-problem solving, venture into the applications.
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That’s so funny — I’ve just been stuck on Zachary Shiner’s blog too. I was sure I was the only lurker over there at that moment. 😉
Speaking as one of our-slash-your formerly discouraged math students — one who overcame math discouragement relatively late in life — I keep wanting to raise my voice and yell, “All we want is to be talked to as if you BELIEVED we were intelligent human beings! Stop trying to water the math down for us! We want it full-strength, thank you! You are only embarrassing yourselves!”
Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now.
Elizabeth (aka @cheesemonkeysf on Twitter)
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I didn’t realize people lurked around on that place. I also never got that satchel and had to settle for some very teacher-like briefcase. I also doubt that I am doing any better than you in floundering around as a student teacher and I have objective evidence that I am no better of a writer.
All in all though, it is nice to read a blog about someone who is going through stuff that I am about to go through. Thanks for the welcome, the shout-out and thank you most of all for your blog.
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