Sheesh, how much do I wish I'd had Pix or GG as my teacher? Fabulous questions, Kristin!

I totally get the "show your work", though. Otherwise maybe you're just cheating. Or, more importantly, maybe you get the wrong answer because [not that this would EVER happen to me] you add the numbers just a little bit wrong but you TOTALLY have the right CONCEPT, and if you show your work you can get a lot of partial credit that if you just gave the answer the teacher would have to be like "2? The answer is 75! Where did you get 2? SO WRONG!! FAIL!!"

I'm with meara. 'Show your work' is annoying if you HAVE got a good strategy that's going to consistently help you, sure. For all those kids who are getting the wrong answer (or indeed ACCIDENTALLY getting the right answer despite making mistakes, or just because of copying), showing the method used gives the teacher some clue what the hell is going on in their heads, and whether they're in the ballpark (and can maybe get some credit and a quick pointer of where it went wonky) or have totally misunderstood it, and need help, stat.

signed, Wishes She Could See Into Kids' Heads. Sometimes.

GG, I'd be happy to have a copy of the assignment, thanks!

Awesome. I'll scan a copy and get it to you asap.

Get lost in those eyes....dang. Ok, and then I glance up to the HUGE portrait of Jesus again. I'm in such trouble...

Hee. Fortunately we were at Rush Presbyterian, so not so much with the jebuses all over the place.

Extended biopsy~ma for your mom, Suzi. Glad to hear it's not cancer.

I usually did my homework. 99% of the time, nobody's perfect. There were a few times I wanted to throw it all in a teacher's face, though, especially when they'd give me an A grade, but then U for effort. Like, dude, I did everything you asked and it's not enough effort? Eff You. I was so glad to get out of school.

By the time I got to school my parents had been teaching in the school system for years. They knew everyone, so everyone knew me. Oh, yeah, I did my work.

I try to tell my students that learning how to communicate your ideas is an important skill. So, communicate in writing by showing your work. I don't care if you show every step, but write enough so that I can tell what you're doing. I also try to have students come up to the board and explain to the class how to do problems, or have them work in small groups and explain to each other.

I was horrible about doing homework in high school. Doing 30 problems on a topic that I already understood or writing out the definitions of words I already knew just seemed dumb. (One teacher would assign us to look up and write the definitions of any words in that night's assigned reading that we didn't know. And then she didn't believe me when I said that I knew all the words.) In ninth grade, my biology teacher called my mother to tell her that about five of my classmates had said, "Hillary explained that to me," when he was going over an assignment with them, but I hadn't handed in that assignment myself (or, really, anything else that semester.)

If this book were made into a movie, what would its soundtrack be? Identify a song you would use and explore how it captures the essence of a specific character, relationship, or story as a whole.

I'm sure you've thought of this already, but if any of the books on the list have been made into movies, maybe you could gently suggest the students avoid using them to answer this one?

I have finally admitted to myself that I have no time these days to maintain a bleached-head lifestyle and am returning my hair to a quasi-natural state. In about 15 minutes, it will be "soft black."

I was so happy when I got to upper-level classes in college and it was finally assumed that we understood the basic stuff, and the homework was a few complicated problems every few weeks, rather than a ton of simple problems a few times a week.

In Fuck Cancer News, my old awesome boss at The Nature Conservancy is stepping down from his job as state director of Washington because his colon cancer has advanced far enough that there is nothing else they can do for him. He's not even 54 years old. Clean living, active, awesome guy and he's not got much time left.

FUCK YOU, CANCER, YOU FUCKING FUCK.

FUCK YOU, CANCER, YOU FUCKING FUCK.

Damn right.

I'm sorry about your former boss, Cashmere.