jumpingfish

On Wednesday, they learned how to complete the square, a long-ish process that generally makes the kids’ eyes roll back in their heads. In a few days, we’ll use that to derive the quadratic formula. But first, we need to discuss taking the square root of a negative number. (Quelle horreur!) For this, they’ll need to learn complex numbers.

So that’s what we did on Friday.

In the course of the lesson, I grabbed a green highlighter and highlighted the real part of a complex number in an example problem. Then I highlighted the imaginary part in yellow. As I did this, I heard talking at the desks behind me.

Now, you must know that during this period, at this pod of five students, there is almost always some talking. They’re rascals, and nothing I have done has solved that problem. Still, they’re good-natured rascals, we get along well, and there’s something about the five of them that seems to be engaged, even if there’s consistently a lot of talking among them.

I glanced over my shoulder, preparing to stare them down. This technique works remarkably well — turn, stop teaching, and stare patiently until they realize that everyone is watching them chat. But when I looked over, I saw that the conversation was about who was going to get which color highlighter. Matt held a blue one up in the air, taunting Dannielle until she settled on orange.

It’s not every day that students wrestle over who gets dibs on the highlighters for the notes. So I turned back around and continued the lesson.

With the long-overdue rain we had over the weekend, the front yard is abloom.

Fall Asters, Purple Trailing Lantana, Russian Sage, and even Mealy Blue Sage have exploded in purples that complement the yellow and oranges of the rest of the yard. And those yellows and oranges have found new vigor, evidently casting aside the seed-making on which they had become focused in favor of new buds and blossoms.

Because it had rained.

When I stepped out of the car in the driveway after getting home from school, a Monarch butterfly flittered about my head. I shouted in glee to Trudy who said they had been all over the yard all day.

Let’s be clear, the demise of Monarchs is so complete that a single butterfly is cause for celebration these days. Just one. 

Yet there we were, standing by the curb with the yellows and oranges and purples spread before us. And swirling among the blossoms or sitting on a flower stretching their wings was a host of Monarchs. Ok, six of them maybe a dozen, or maybe more. Who’s to check my figures? 

It was enough to make our hearts explode, the Monarchs landing here for a moment and then fluttering there. Gathering nectar, perhaps. Because it’s a long way to Mexico.

Someone left behind a package of minty gum. It was sitting on a desk after all the kids had gone. The box was full and wanted chewing. I figured someone might claim it if I put it on my desk in plain sight — next to the left-behind water bottles, headphones, and hoodie.

The next day, after we were finished talking about factoring quadratic expressions, Martin asked me a question.

“Mr. Hasan, did you find a package of gum after class the other day?”

“I did,” I said. “Is this yours?” I held up the abandoned minty gum package.

He nodded.

“Is it really yours?” I asked. (I’d ask the same for someone claiming the headphones, so why not for gum?)

“Yes,” he said.

I handed it to him. He took out a couple sticks of gum and passed them out to the other students sitting at his pod.

…

After class, I noticed the package of minty gum was on the desk. He had left it behind, again.

I walked over and picked it up. A scrap of paper fell from beneath it.