Stevie --

Here's the thing I was talking about:

--- Bob Baird wrote:

> My favorite -- #24

> Things My Math Teacher Did Last Year:

> a.. 1. Forgot how to find the slope of a
> line.
> b.. 2. Tried to express the difference
> between ( 2 Sin x) and ( 5 Sin x) by yelling
> out what they would sound like if you turned
> them into sounds.
> c.. 3. Pointed the overhead projector out the
> window instead of at the screen.
> d.. 4. Taught us the difference between
> vertical and horizontal.
> e.. 5. Took a little bit too long to reduce
> 36/108 to 4/12, and just as long to reduce that
> to 1/3.
> f.. 6. Made sure that we were fully aware
> that Moses descended from the mountains with
> the Ten Commandments and not with the knowledge
> of how to determine square roots.
> g.. 7. Brought a rope to class and tried to
> hold it up to demonstrate different graphs
> rather then drawing them on the board.
> Complications arose when she realized that she
> only had two hands.
> h.. 8. When a student asked, "Can I ask you a
> question?" she cleverly replied, "You just
> did!" Needless to say, no one thought that was
> very funny.
> i.. 9. Taught us that a good way to remember
> what an exponent is is to remember that is has
> the letter "x" in it. That was the only
> explanation she gave.
> j.. 10. Told us that she offers extra credit
> points for every time you tell her about an
> "interesting" mistake you made on your
> homework. She also grants extra credit for not
> knowing how to do a problem and asking her how
> to do it. Since these assignments are not
> turned in, you are rewarded absolutely no
> points for knowing how to do all the problems
> and doing them all correctly.
> k.. 11. This extra credit is added up when,
> at the end of class, she passes around a piece
> of paper and you write down your name and how
> many extra credit points you earned that day.
> l.. 12. One assignment each week is actually
> handed in for credit. I answered three out of
> the five problems incorrect but still managed
> to receive 9.5 points out of a possible 10.
> m.. 13. She explained 1-dimensional,
> 2-dimensional, and 3-dimensional objects. She
> then portrayed what a 2 1/2-dimensional object
> was by violently wadding up a piece of paper
> into a ball and holding it out to us. She later
> realized that she needed that piece of paper to
> make copies of the homework assignment for the
> class.
> n.. 14. The only reason she was talking about
> 2 1/2-dimensional objects in the first place
> was because she thought 1 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 2 1/2.
> o.. 15. Told us that as the year went on,
> we'd be learning more things about math.
> p.. 16. After she illustrated the difference
> between f(x) = sin x and f(x) = x^2, she
> advised us to just sit back for a minute and
> take it all in. So we did.
> q.. 17. Admitted that half the math problems
> out there are just impossible.
> r.. 18. Since homework is due not at class
> time but at midnight, there is good reason to
> believe that she lives in her office.
> s.. 19. Admitted that she doesn't have enough
> brain cells to know what pi is.
> t.. 20. Used her superior math skills to
> estimate that the answer to one problem was
> somewhere in between 100 and 1,000.
> u.. 21. Advised us to never ever graph (-3)^x
> because the result would be way too weird for
> us to handle.
> v.. 22. Had the ingenious idea to combine
> math and gym class, which she demonstrated by
> moving her arms around frantically so that they
> looked like certain graphs. No one else did it.
>
> w.. 23. The number 3 reminds her of an
> accordion.
> x.. 24. Said that math is an escape from the
> real world and those who do math cannot deal
> with reality.
> y.. 25. One of the problems on a past
> assignment asked us to write an equation that
> when graphed, would show the emotional ups and
> downs of a friend.
> z.. 26. Said that she might have invented the
> distributive property, but she wasn't really
> sure.
> aa.. 27. Some students lost points on their
> homework assignment for using logarithms to
> solve certain problems because she had not
> taught us that method yet. Other methods, such
> as guessing, were accepted.
> ab.. 28. Taught us various ways to use our
> calculators to cheat on the test.
> ac.. 29. Determined that 2000/400 was
> "probably" 5.
> ad.. 30. A student raised their hand in class
> and the teacher called on her by saying, "I
> have no idea why, but I am so determined to
> call you Sarah right now." The student
> responded by saying, "Probably because that's
> my name."
> ae.. 31. Admitted that she spent a lot of her
> childhood hanging on to an electric fence for
> as long as she could.
> af.. 32. When the word asymptote comes up,
> she is the one who is quick to point out that
> it starts with "ass".
> ag.. 33. Asked us, "What's the graph look
> like for this equation?" When no one said
> anything, she just started dancing around for
> some reason.
> ah.. 34. She showed up for class one day and
> the lights were off. She said, "No wonder you
> guys are always in the dark." I knew it was
> going to be a bad day.
> ai.. 35. Said that if we didn't like the
> grade we got on the test, we could just make
> our own test and do that one instead.
> aj.. 36. Informed us that while driving, we'd
> still have to depress the accelerator if we
> wanted to keep moving at a uniform speed.
> Apparently it isn't just for accelerating.
> ak.. 37. Has the amazing ability to somehow
> associate any math problem with the time she
> went to Australia.
> al.. 38. Direct Quote: "The facts of life is
> this is a parabola." I have no idea what she
> could have possibly meant by that.
> am.. 39. Showed her mastery of the English
> language by successfully using the word
> "maximumly" in a sentence.
> an.. 40. Told us that it's possible for a
> math problem to be its own grandma.
> ao.. 41. Asked us if we were surprised when
> 1/2 X 40 ended up being 20.
> ap.. 42. A student messed up on a problem and
> told the teacher what she had done. The teacher
> got all excited and said, "Oh, I like that!"
> aq.. 43. Said that Tuesday seemed like a
> "bizillion" years ago.
> ar.. 44. Told us that although we understood
> the problem, we'd probably get all confused
> again once we were further away from her aura.
> as.. 45. Said that doing integrals is like
> driving with a clutch; in that you don't know
> how it works but you do it anyways.
> at.. 46. She's a retired high school math
> teacher.
> au.. 47. When one student raised both their
> arms above their head to stretch, she asked the
> student if he had two questions.
>