Friday, October 13, 2006

How I Spent My Friday Evening

Since part of my 10-year-old's homework (why elementary students need homework is far beyond me) is to read for 20 minutes each night and write a few sentences summarizing what he's read, I've made reading together an every-evening event. He grabs his book, I grab mine, and we go somewhere in the house--lately it's been the living room--and we read silently. Every once in awhile he'll tell me what's going on in his story, but that's ok. In fact, it's even better.

What am I currently reading, you may ask? Well, I have two teacher's aides. Both are former pre-calculus students of mine from last year, and both are taking AP Calculus this year. It's been a couple of decades since I've been in a calculus class, and when the day comes that they start asking me questions about their homework, I don't want to have to spend 5 minutes reviewing the section they're studying before I'm able to explain to them what's going on.

So I've been studying my calculus book from 1983.

Continuity. Limits. Differentiability. Tonight I even worked some "homework" problems, including finding derivatives of functions directly from the definition. Quite fun, in some respects.

Those students may be my aides, but I'm still a teacher. Their teacher.

Oh, and after reading tonight? Hot tub. Life is good.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent. Family reading time like that is really good!

Brook Stevens said...

Good stuff now i know who to go to for help ! ! !

Anonymous said...

Flooring in this year...hot tub next! :)

Anonymous said...

I've been teaching calculus to at least three sections of college students per year for the last ten years. I'm so tired of teaching it that it's refreshing to see somebody coming back to it after so long and enjoying it.

What's the book you [had | are using]?

Darren said...

Calculus with Analytic Geometry, by Earl Swokowski. I've always thought it was a good book.

Anonymous said...

What happened to being poor, eh? I don't have a hot tub...

Darren said...

I still drive a Kia...

Anonymous said...

Maybe that's why you drive a Kia.

Darren said...

I bought the Kia over 2 years before I bought the hot tub.

Anonymous said...

How much do hot tubs go for, anyways?

Darren said...

A little less than the Kia.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. You could get a nice sedan for that much.

Anonymous said...

Mr.Miller i am sorry to say but ERIC the lib is right to a degree. But seeing as it is only you and your son i would suggest selling the KIA and buying a new (AMERICAN) car. No self respecting man and futhermore conservative drives a KIA.. sorry.