students' inaugural paper

I am a little disappointed with what my students show me for their paper on the 44th president's inaugural address (that is related to math or anything they can associate with math). I am not sure if it's the defiance among teenagers or they just don't know how to write.

Only half of them handed in their work. Others said one night is "way too tight", some said that they cannot find anything to write about math. The winning excuse was "If it's geography or social studies, or english, I will not have a problem writing even 4 pages! I just can't find math in the speech!"

I guess, they are actually looking for the word "math" in the speech... no, I'd like to call it defiance.

For the students who did their work and see the math in it, I am proud of you guys!

tfr

Pay for Grades

I found this article from an education website. It talks about the students' motivator in the 21st century. Students are getting paid for their grades. It is indeed a controversial motivator, even my most unmotivated student, was urge to write down what he thinks. Oh, by the way, after I had the students read the article, I asked them to write down which side they take. Whether they agree on the program of paying students to earn passing grades, or disagree which means not having the program at all. I took pictures of some of the interesting writing they handed in. I will post them later. Pay for grades is controversial but is really happening in one of the districts in Chicago. I would like to know if it really works.

Stay tuned for my students' works. tfr