Great Day!

I am not sure how or why, but Wednesday was an incredible teaching day. My mood was up and was reinforced by the classes being familiar with the topic (triangles). In the past I have had students struggle with the six different types (3 classifications by sides, 3 by angles), but it all seemed to click for them this time around. And as they got it, I could give them more, since their fear of the material being too hard evaporated. That cycle of success is hard to get going, but once it kicks in it is great.

I had one student, who I had last year, who blurted out while I was teaching (not loudly enough for anyone but me) "When you are smiling it is like you light up teaching". I took her aside after class and really thanked her, because it was such a wonderful thing to hear. And it will carry me through times when I question what I am doing. Another class, this one honors where they think they know it all, I had one of my top students come to me at the end of class and ask how I knew a triangle's angles added to 180. Without a protractor, I showed her by having her cut out a triangle, then color the angles. We then trimmed them off, and lined them up to make a straight line - 180. Her eyes lit up because I had showed her something she had never thought about. Similar things happened in just about every class. And once they see how easy it can be, they do the homework, and they become eager for the next day.

No, I don't think it will last, but for now it has left me with a nice glow.

Tomorrow, fun fun fun. 8am appointment with the UT Medical Lab. I signed up last spring for a study on adult children of parents with Type 2 diabetes. I missed the cutoff by a few points, and now they have relaxed the requirements (I would venture they didn't get enough candidates), so I get to repeat the process...fasting, blood drawing, drinking sugary beverage, blood drawing. You ladies have gone through it for gestational diabetes testing. Hey, on the bright side, it is a day off, and then a long weekend.