things on my mind

I've been fuming over this topic this entire week, making sure not to write when I was angry but actually had a chance to think about it and talk about it with my peers. Here is my issue: I was in my math methods class on Tuesday night and we were talking about problem solving, strategies, different ways of learning the same thing for the elementary students, which was all good and dandy until my professor said that teaching students how to multiply by four digit numbers is not neccessary just like how teaching them how to type on the keyboard isn't necessary....excuse me?? This entire concept blew my mind. I understand, first she was talking about like 10 years from now for the keyboard, but even with that I think typing is going to be one skill that won't die that soon. Also, with the multiplying...I am a soon to be middle school math teacher and I believe that while multiplying by a multiple digit number may be tedious and not necessary because of the invention of the calculator, it is still necessary to let them know it is a task they can easily defeat and shouldn't be afraid of approaching such a task. Sure, technology is great and has made us rather lazy, use our brains less, and yet made life so much easier and faster, but that doesnt mean that we should just stop learning the basics. I think my opinion may have to do with the fact that when i was in high school, my teachers never let us use our calculator. I feel kind of behind because I am not calculator savvy like many other people that only used that in high school, but at least I know I can do problems by hand if need be. If anyone would like to discuss this further...leave a comment.

Friday is supposed to be great because I only have one class, but it seems as though that even though I only have one class I always have so much to do. I often feel like I waste time in my day because I don't know where the time goes, but yesterday it was minute by minute..check it out: after class, I had lunch at 11:30 till noonish. Then I went to the public library on Forest, got a new library card, couldn't find the book I needed so I went to the Central library in downtown DsM, went to movie gallery to pick up Water, and was back around 2:30ish. Put away laundry and packed up for my night...went to work out for an hour, changed my clothes/cleaned up, then worked the concessions till 10pm!! Then I finally got to watch my movie. It was an action packed day.

This morning I volunteered at Kids Against Hunger for 10K show, but I went with all the APO kids instead. I should have just done it for 10K last week because thats when all the 10K people went and gone for APO today. oh well..it was all great and we were producing food bags so fast it was a competition within our assesmbly line on who could keep up. It was awesome.

Then tonight I went to the Vietnamese New Year celebration. Lots of fun...no pics, b/c it was too far and people were constantly in the way. lo siento.

Tomorrow, lets hope its a successful day in getting work done. Only 1 meeting!! YaY!

Next weekend: Iowa Council Teachers of Mathematics conference all day friday, Habitat for Humanity on Saturday, and too many meetings on Sunday.


Goodnite and sweet dreams! peace.