I figured since I am avoiding math homework I might as well take a couple pics of the garden as it looks since this morning…
This is me, looking over the squash (which are a little droopy from the hot sun today), just past 6 pm my time.
This is the stidkid, looking over the tomatoes (in the bed) and the newly seeded areas to each side (beets and carrots).
And this is the center of the garden, the “strawberry pot” was a dismal failure at berries, but does great with herbs. The yellow and orange flowers are calendula, punctuated with italian parsley, and in the circle scratched around those are a mesclun (salad blend) and basil patch. I may round off the corners of this bed and border it with bricks or rocks …
And on the topic of math avoidance… I can’t say I am really avoiding it much. I have been working at rather fast pace the last couple days, doing nearly two chapters since Wednesday night. I am trying to work ahead fast enough that I will have some space and time to let things sit before the end of class. Since the teacher has me (and a couple others) working ahead of the rest of the class, I am finding that some of my questions hold me back but then get answered later on.
Do I enjoy math? I can’t say that I am enjoying it any more now than in high school or the few math-intensive (but not specifically math-oriented) courses in college. BUT I can say that I am understanding things a little more, gaining some new insights into how to present the material, and learning a little bit about my own brain, so I can interpret things better for others.
And that is, after all, what this course if about: learning about the processes students go through to learn basic math skills. Geared to people who teach or hope to teach in grades 1-6, it is less about learning one specific method to perform tasks and more about the reasons that several different methods work (and why sometimes only one way works). I am glad I am taking this class, and I will be glad when it is over… Meantime, I will finish the reading and exercises for the chapter on fractions tonight and take the test tomorrow morning, leaving some writing and summarizing for later.