ThinkShow

Twice a year Memphis City Schools has a district-wide presentation of projects, kind of a throw-back to science/history fair stuff I did in middle school. Every teacher must have their students doing projects. For whatever reason, I have great ideas for my students that always seem to turn out kind of lame. Maybe the ideas aren't that great, I don't know. Am I being too ambitious, not allowing enough time, not thinking it through enough? November 11 is the official date this year and my students' projects are due next Monday.

In Algebra I thought it'd be great if my students wrote the resume of a famous mathematician. I decided it would be great to teach them a real-life skill and would fit in with the historical piece I'm supposed to be adding in. It seemed like a good idea . . . except only about 1/4 of my students have turned in the rough draft like they're supposed to . . . and the computer lab time I had scheduled fell through . . .

Anyway, I thought it was a great project. I thought it'd be really neat to put it on display. I got the first round of projects e-mailed to me. One of the more complete ones really surprised me with what it said. Euclid is considered the father of geometry. You've maybe heard his name in the words "euclidean geometry". We don't necessarily know oodles about him, but he is a pretty important guy. My student who wrote his resume included the following two facts in it:

• Wrote On the movies sphere (Euclid actually wrote On the Movement of Spheres)
• Invited geometry did much work with comic sections (I never thought geometry was that funny . . . maybe I need to invite it to my next party)

We've still got some time, but I need to get 48 students onto two computers in the next three days. I wish things were looking a little better, but if nothing else these resumes will be interesting.