College Class

Classes started in the college tonight. It is a good thing that I like to see my name online or I would have missed my first night. I thought classes started on Wednesday. This would have not been the first time I missed the starting class. I love searching the catalogue for "pissedoff" and seeing myself pop up.

My class seemed really nice. The college classes usually are. I teach a math class for people that do not like math. I tell all who are looking for a heavy duty math class to drop. The class is not a hard class, but it is a lot of work that they have to be prepared to do. We look at math from a useful point of view. We do statistics from the newspaper, learn what those surveys really mean and how they are taken. We look at probability in terms of real life situations, from actual gambling to how insurance premiums are figured out. We do exponential growth and how it affects bank accounts, credit cards and even pay checks. My favorite topic is voting theory. We go into the mathematics behind an election and what makes a fair election. It is amazing to go through the process of how the electoral college was formed, especially when you realize that our founding fathers had no access to calculators or computers.

As much as I was not ready to return to work, I'm glad the college classes start a week before high school. It gives me a chance to break in slowly. It gives me a chance to remember how much I love teaching, before I start with all the BS on the high school level. It gives me a chance to see that the people in my class really like me. Every term, I have people in the class that are repeating. Even though they failed with me before, the come back, knowing that I will do my best to get them to succeed.