What I Love and Will Miss about our Students

There is no doubt that Asian students have more of an aptitude for mathematics. I think it has more to do with their schooling from a young age rather than genetics, but that's just my opinion. Either way, most of my students are ahead of their American counterparts as far as age groups go. One special group of students that makes this fact very obvious is the math olympiad team, whom I have worked with for two years now. They are 8th graders who can do more math than most college freshmen in the States.

It's an understatement to say I will miss them, for obvious and multiple reasons, but I will specifically really miss their intrinsic motivation to do math of all things. Just now the bell rang to release students from their last hour of the day to go to their dorms to change for activity. Michael, one of my math olympiads from the fall, came right over from art class (next door) only moments after the ringing of the bell left my ears. His purpose? "Do you have any hard math questions for me, Teacher?"

He does this from time to time; I don't teach him and never have, I just coached him in math olympiad in the fall of both of my years here. He just simply loves math so he comes and visits me sometimes. I don't have normal math problems just laying around my classroom, so I generally give him SAT math prep tests. And you know what, he does well on them. I love these kids' natural math ability!

Now we'll just see how he does with the special right triangles SAT sheet I just gave him!

They Can't Deny It, The Students Actually Like Math!

We've been working on our all school math competition , Math Wars, since early November and it has been an uphill battle. Entire prep periods devoted to a saturday in which we would put in basically volunteer hours just to have this event. Countless night trips to hardware stores and dollar stores gathering supplies. And of course, the ever constant battle with administration to get exactly what you need to make it happen. Needless to say, we were all really hoping it was be good in the end.

Lucky for us, our hard work paid off in full: Math Wars was a shining success! I knew it would be good when I started with an all school presentation in the auditorium at 1:30 yesterday. The students filed in just like any other day, but when I started talking they were really listening. I don't mean the sort of teenage half-listen and half continue talking with your friends, I mean actually listening. I explained the day to them: five different rooms that they could choose to be in focusing on different applications of math. We had the visual room, the vocabulary room, the construction room, logic room and finally the challenge room. It was up to them which room they wanted to compete in and I think that made a big difference for a lot of students.

I was in charge of the challenge room- "only for the serious mathematicians." As all of the students in the challenge room filed in and sat down at their tables in the cafeteria, I could tell there was definite excitement building. I explained the rules and the process of the day, and then went on to detail the opening activity. Now the opening activity was the only one that was a direct competition for the entire event. Each team had to use two containers, one with 3 units of water marked and the other with 5 units, and pour exactly 4 units of water into my cup which was also marked. As I finished explaining and took one last pause, I literally saw students sitting on the edge of their seats. So I just said "Go!" and I have never seen some of these kids move so fast!

It was really just as intense for the rest of the time; each house (team) was working on what they wanted because we provided them with five or six other challenge problems that they could choose from to try and gain points. Again, I have never seen some of these kids work so hard! I even saw some shaking hands and that is not an exaggeration!

The best part about it was that I was hearing the exact same thing from other teachers in the other four rooms. It seems like all of the students enjoyed their time and really got competitive about it. We had kids getting really pumped about the results which we are refusing to release until Monday at assembly. Little did they know they would like a math competition so much! :)

On the Eve of Math Wars...

Well folks, tomorrow is the day. The day that my math department has been preparing for since November. The video (see previous post to have your mind blown) has been made, posters have been hung around school, and all supplies have been gathered. Tomorrow is Math Wars 2012 at school, an all school math competition!

I am so excited I cannot possibly begin to explain. On one hand, I'm just so curious to see how the students like it and if it is as epic of a success as I am imagining in my head (I think so!). On the other hand, I'm just really excited for it to be over so I can have all of my prep periods back! It's going to be very fun and a great accomplishment to have under my belt, but boy does it take a lot of work to organize an event for 180 kids!

It is Friday at noon and I just put the finishing touches on the trophy for Math Wars. Now we just have to wait and see which house brings home the gold! Stay tuned...

St. Patrick's Day in Asia

Very American holiday's are always interesting when celebrated in Taiwan. As one can imagine, the Taiwanese don't get overly excited about holiday's such as St. Patrick's day. Now we do a pretty good job at picking up the slack and making the best of it, but it's always difficult to get certain essentials.

For St. Patricks day this year, Nichole (my roommate) and I decided to have a little green gathering at our apartment. And since it was such a fun themed party, we wanted to get costumes to really take it to the next level. We go to a costume shop where you can rent full costumes for school a lot. So we drove over there and checked it out last Friday. Sadly enough, we couldn't find any full body leprechaun costumes there, but we got creative and still made the party a hit!

We didn't have any green food coloring to make themed appetizers, but we did get foods in the three main colors of the Irish flag (and of course positioned them in the order of the flag as well). So even though we live in Asia where pots of gold and four leaf clover decorations are impossible to find, we gave it the old American try and did our best with random stuff! It turned out pretty well too!

Math Wars

I have fallen behind, once again, but boy do I have something exciting to tell you! In the time that I left you last, lots has happened obviously. We had our advisees over for dinner at our apartment, had a Ladies Night (teachers only that time) out on the town, and have been doing lots of other little things. So my time has been clearly elsewhere, instead of blogging. But something is in the works right now that I can't help but tell you all about.

We are having an all school math competition in one and a half weeks! I know, exciting. So to build anticipation for the event, we showed a video at assembly. Let me just post the link to the YouTube video of it and I'll let you see for yourselves...it is EPIC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAOSEiq7-FQ&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy :)

Earthquake!...on the 10th Floor

It has been a miracle that this year there have been significantly less earthquakes than last year. Well, that miracle was shaken away on Sunday morning when our apartment building began to sway. Yes, you read that right, sway.

Earthquakes are scary enough to us Midwesterners because it is such a foreign and unnerving feeling. Last year they were scary; the building shakes and the contents of your shelfs start to rumble towards the edge. This year is oh-so-much worse living on the 10th floor of a high rise apartment complex. Now, I take comfort in thinking about how many regulations there must be on buildings as tall as ours (17 stories!), but I also worry that it could still fall. Obviously.

It is a very odd/terrifying sensation to realize that your entire apartment building is swaying back and forth because there is an earthquake. It sort of feels like when you go up into a tall fire-tower and it sways with the breeze. Except this is a huge concrete and steel structure...where you live. We checked later and it was actually a pretty big earthquake, 6.1 on the Richter Scale, but it was far away and deep in the earth. It still scared me enough to not want to experience any more while at home! Minnesota, when can I set my feet on your solid ground again???

The Joy's of Having a Mechanic Named Bruce

I am convinced that mechanics all over the world must all be alike. It takes a special type of person to get their hands dirty day after day and constantly fix machines that the rest of us try our bests to run into the ground. No matter the race, language, or time zone, a mechanic is a mechanic.

Which is exactly why I love my mechanic Bruce. First of all, his name is Bruce which is quite possibly the best mechanics name in all the land. Second, he is the stereotypical mechanic you would think of, but Asian. In a culture that is lacking in machoness, Bruce is all that is man. I know several male coworkers who love to go visit him just because they think he is a cool guy.

And most importantly, Bruce is a straight shooter and will not cheat you on parts or labor costs (since he doesn't charge anything labor, it would be pretty tough to!). I can go get my oil changed from Bruce (like I just did, hence the raving blog post you are reading) and he will tell me if my tires need to be changed or just pumped up with air. He will tell me I'm an idiot for waiting so long to get my oil changed and then he will tell me if I need to replace the brakes or not. Last time I did need to replace my brakes, and good old Bruce put in used ones to save me some money...which I hope is safe.

My favorite part about seeing Bruce for my oil change however, is the departure. I will generally smile and tell him thank you and all I get in response is a slight nod of the head and a somewhat dismissive hand wave. Mechanics are lovable, gruff characters. Even in Taiwan.