Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Math and Homework

Last night my husband and I started working on our budget together. After 15 minutes he looked at me and asked, "What are you procrastinating from doing?"Apparently I have never been so amiable about working on a budget. I said I was fine. (A surefire promise that I have done nothing.) He drug out my statistics. He bought me a new calculator that I have needed, a T-84 two days ago. Mine isn't pink-- it's only $99 in black so we needed to save the $50. He suggested that I do 20 minutes a night of budget work, and the rest with my academic classes. I am doing frozen lasagnas now and having the older kids help with dinner.

He sat with me while I went through the problems. I got mad at him because I needed a break and he'd not give me one. He had me and the kids all doing our math and when Guy asked why he was forcing him to do extra math problems, Darrin winked at me and said, "So you won't be like your mother, one semester away from a degree and struggling with your math!" Guy didn't complain the rest of the night!

Guy brought me something annoying. Schools seem to think families are bored and have nothing to do. His teacher sent a generic note home to parent/guardians, wanting us to sign papers stating what time each night we will sit down with our "student" and "turn off the TV and radio" and assign a person in the family to do a special math study! I wrote that some kids do better with a radio going, that other sibs can be occupied with a TV and that we have no one person available at the same time each night for homework. I don't like TV but I really wanted to turn it on. These people send home cheesy newsletters each week with "helpful tips for families!" Do i seem like I need more to do? They can shove those helpful tips in their ears!

The stats classs is just repetition. There are long formulas that my husband sits with me and says out loud, over and over with each problem. It's like structural grammer but easier since I have him going over it with me. Of course Darrin gets excited, which makes me excited. Then he looks over the letters in Greek and tells me other things about the Greeks. What's funny is that his anecdotes make the formulas stick in my mind. Why this works I do not know, but they get eprsonal with me.

If I stay on this it will be over in two months.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well, in Hungarian high school it is not allowed to use scientific calculator. It makes maths too simple. I mean you can make functions without any trouble with that. I have a 4 years old normal calculator so I have to calculate more.