Tag: math

April 17, 1999.  My fifth Spring Picnic. (#214)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 1 Comment

Note to readers: About a month ago, I noticed that I had just finished an episode that was set in early March, and it was early March in real life as well. From that moment on, I have been trying to go back to writing weekly, so that the time of year in the story will stay approximately the same as the time of year in real life. But sometimes, episodes in the story have either more or less than a week passing between them, so it will not always be a perfect match. I may take a week off here and there if it is necessary and appropriate to keep the story matching the actual time of year. Right now, the story has moved a couple weeks ahead of real time, but a lot will happen to character-Greg in the next month or so of his life, so the next few episodes take place less than a week apart, and then the timing will match real life again soon.

I arrived on campus feeling that odd combination of cold and hot that comes after riding a bicycle for two miles on a cool morning.  I wore shorts and a t-shirt, because it was supposed to warm up this afternoon, but at a few minutes after eight in the morning, it was not very warm yet.

I parked my bike at the bike racks outside of Stone Hall, the building that housed the chemistry department.  Its room 199 was the largest lecture hall on campus.  I made a note to remember where my bike was, since Stone Hall was not usually my first stop in the morning on the day of the Spring Picnic.  There was already a long line snaking down from the entrance to 199 Stone, around the building, and south hundreds of feet almost all the way to Ross Hall.  I walked all the way to the end of the line and stood.

Ninety years ago, this campus in Jeromeville was an extension campus of its sister school, the University of the Bay, where students studying agriculture would get experience in the field, in a part of the state that actually had farms.  The school invited the public to a dedication of a new building and a presentation about the research being done there, with attendees instructed to bring a picnic lunch.  The event proved to be so popular that it became an annual tradition, evolving into a huge open house and festival held all across the campus of what eventually became the University of Jeromeville.  The event had been canceled a few times over the years, so today was officially the 85th Annual Spring Picnic.

I took out my guide to events and a pen while I waited in line.  The line did not appear to be moving yet, so it looked like I would be here for a long time.  This was my fifth Spring Picnic, and some of the recurring events I kept hearing about I still had yet to experience.  I had never milked a cow.  I had never put my hand inside the stomach of a cow that had a window and door to its stomach surgically added for research purposes, and I never would, since animal rights activists shut that event down a couple years ago.  And I had never seen the Chemistry Club’s show, which is what led me to arrive early enough this year to stand in line and get a ticket, hopefully.

In the guide, I marked the events that I was hoping to see.  The Math Club would be doing their exhibit for most of the day, so I could go there whenever I had time.  I would probably be able to see part of the parade, even if I ended up seeing the first performance of the chemistry show, since the parade lasted for over an hour. But everything was tentative for now, since I was not sure what time I would be seeing the chemistry show.  There were four performances, and tickets were free, but by the time I got to the front of the line, some of the performances might be out of tickets.  The lecture hall held close to four hundred students, but the line was so long that there were easily more than four hundred people in front of me.

I looked through the list of musical acts performing today.  At my first Spring Picnic freshman year, an older friend told me about a really good local band called Lawsuit.  I saw them that year, and again the following year, and then twice more at events that were not the Spring Picnic.  They broke up the following year, so I knew that they would not be performing, but I had been listening to their music again recently.  My friend Brennan Channing, a freshman with two older siblings who had also attended Jeromeville, knew Lawsuit and let me borrow their CD recently so that I could burn a copy on my computer.

I did see one musical act that I recognized: Carolyn C. Parry, at three o’clock at the Coffee House in the Memorial Union.  Good for Carolyn, I thought.  She made it in the music world, at least she made it big enough to play the UJ Coffee House for the Spring Picnic.

Carolyn C. Parry graduated from UJ last year, the same age as me.  I knew her from chorus, and she also was on the worship team for University Life, the college ministry of First Baptist Church of Jeromeville.  I went to Jeromeville Covenant and Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, but I had been to U-Life a few times over the years, and I had friends who went to U-Life.  I knew Carolyn well enough to say hi to.  The last time I saw her, several months ago, she mentioned that she was going to record a CD of original music and was looking into performing small shows like this.  Her appearance in the Spring Picnic program was the first I had heard of this endeavor of hers being successful.

The line slowly inched forward as I continued reading through the guide, marking events that I might want to check out.  I had been to enough Spring Picnics by now, though, that I knew that part of the fun was specifically not making a detailed plan in advance.  So much happened simultaneously during the Spring Picnic that it was impossible to see everything, and I enjoyed wandering around and seeing whatever I happened to find.  Between the exhibits about the research done on campus, food booths, sporting events, performances, and demonstrations, there was always plenty to discover during the Spring Picnic.  For now, though, I was stuck in this line, although not many of the events had begun this early.

The line at least seemed to be moving.  Every few minutes, I took a step forward, and I could see people leaving the front steps of 199 Stone, presumably with tickets in hand.  The people around me looked like a mix of students and non-students, and some students were with their families.  The Spring Picnic was a big enough event in this part of the state that it attracted people not otherwise affiliated with the campus, and some families came to visit their students for the occasion.  My parents and brother had come for last year’s Spring Picnic, but the wandering around and exploring part did not seem to appeal to them.  UJ always hosted a major track and field invitational on the day of the Spring Picnic, and my cousin Rick Lusk was on the track team for North Coast State University, so my family and I spent about two hours at the track, watching Rick’s two races and talking a lot with Rick’s parents while we waited between his two races.  Aunt Jane had given me the times that Rick would be running today; I planned to watch just one of them, whichever one fit in better with the rest of my schedule for the day, and say some quick hellos to the Lusks, but nothing that would require waiting there for two hours.  As I had explained to Aunt Jane over the phone, though, I could not plan any more specifically until I knew which of the chemistry show times I got tickets for.

The 9:00 chemistry show had already begun by the time I reached the front of the line, and I saw a sign saying that tickets for the 10:30 show had already been distributed.  “Are there any left for the 12:00 show?” I asked.

“Just a few left,” the guy handing out the tickets said.  “How many did you need?”

“Just me.”

“You’re good, then,” he said, handing me a ticket.  I put the ticket in my pocket and proceeded to Kerry Hall to see the Math Club’s exhibit.  I could get that out of the way early, since it opened earlier than many of the other exhibits, and it was near the route of the parade that would be starting at 10:00.  By the time I finished the math exhibit, the parade should be starting.

“Greg!” I heard a girl’s voice say as I approached the tables outside the front of Kerry Hall, about five minutes after I got my chemistry ticket.  I recognized Natalie Reese, a math major who was a year younger than me, at a table with polyhedron-shaped bubble wands, demonstrating different patterns formed by the films of soap in the wand, although bubbles blown from these wands always end up round.  “What’s up!  Welcome back!”

“Thanks,” I replied.  “I didn’t really go anywhere, though.  I’m still here, in the student teaching program.”

“Well, I haven’t seen you all year!  How’s student teaching?”

“It’s a lot.  But it’s going okay.  We had the job fair on campus this week, and now I’m just waiting to hear back from those school districts, for second interviews.”

“Good luck!”  Natalie turned to the guy running the table next to her and asked, “Mike?  Do you know Greg?”

“No,” he replied.  “Hi, Greg, I’m Mike.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Greg graduated last year.  He helped me through Math 168.”

“I’m sure you would have done fine without me,” I said.

“I don’t know,” Natalie replied, laughing.

I continued looking at the Math Club display and the adjacent Statistics Club display.  Everything was mostly the same as last year.  I said goodbye to Natalie, Mike, and a few other familiar faces, and walked toward the west side of the Quad, where the parade was about to start.

The most memorable part of the parade was the float for the university’s MBA program.  The students, as they did every year in the parade, wore tops of business suits with boxer shorts, carrying a sign that said “Cover Your Assets.”  I always chuckled at that.  But this year, when the float was about fifty feet past me, something broke on the float, and it stopped.  The students all stood around, trying to tell each other what to do, but no one seemed sure what actually needed to be done.  I overheard a man sitting next to me point out that this was typical of students studying to be business managers, that all they could do was delegate instead of actually fix the problem.  I laughed.

The MBA students did eventually figure out how to get their float moving again a few minutes later, and I sat for a while longer, watching floats and decorated cars go by representing student clubs, local businesses, community organizations, and local political figures, occasionally broken up by marching bands from various high schools and colleges from around the region.  I had a ticket for the 12:00 chemistry show, Aunt Jane had said that one of Rick’s races was supposed to be at 1:40, and Carolyn C. Parry’s show started at 3:00.  In between those three scheduled events I had plenty of time to wander around exhibits, exactly the way I wanted the Spring Picnic to turn out.  And I did wander.  I learned about the university’s experiments in making square-shaped tomatoes, easier to pack in boxes.  I saw a display about different types of soil in this region.  And I learned about diseases that affect common plants used in landscaping.


The chemistry show was one of the biggest disappointments I have ever experienced at a Spring Picnic.  It was not exactly bad, just definitely not worth the hype.  For one thing, I arrived ten minutes before the start of the show, but the room was already so crowded that I had to sit way in the back corner, after climbing over six other people.  The show began with attention-getting explosions on stage, chemical reactions causing bright lights and colored smoke, or as I preferred to think of it, the fun part of chemistry.  But the rest of the show was fairly routine to someone who had taken a full year of freshman chemistry.  I had seen many of the same demonstrations in class at some point.  Definitely not worth waiting in line for almost an hour this morning.  At least I knew in the future that I could skip this event in future Spring Picnics.

By the time I got back to the Quad, I had an hour before I had to go meet the Lusks at the track.  I saw a table where Nu Alpha Kappa, the fraternity for Latino students, was selling carne asada tacos; I stood in line for about fifteen minutes and bought two.  I walked to an empty area of the Quad and began eating.

“Greg,” I heard a familiar voice call out.  I looked up to see Brianna Johns walking toward me, holding a slice of the really good pizza from the Coffee House in the building right next to us.  She wore khaki shorts, white canvas shoes, and a green-gray tank top that seemed to match the color of her eyes, as anything she wore in any shade of blue or green seemed to, for some reason.  I thought she looked hot.

“Hey,” I said, smiling.  “How’s your Spring Picnic going?”

“Fun!  I was watching the parade earlier with Chelsea and Morgan, but Morgan went to go meet her parents, and Chelsea has lunch plans with Tim.  So I’m just hanging out for a while.  Are you here by yourself?”

“Yeah.  My parents came last year, and they didn’t really enjoy it all that much.”  I wondered about Chelsea and Tim having lunch together.  I had seen the two of them together a lot recently, and the way Brianna had worded her reply made it sound like they might officially be a couple now.  I was always last to figure these things out, but I did not want to ask and reveal how out of the loop I was.  “You want to sit down?” I asked.

“Sure.”  Brianna bent over and sat cross-legged on the grass across from me.  “Where’d you get those tacos?” she asked.

“Over there,” I replied, pointing.  “The Latino fraternity is selling them.”

“Nice!  They look yummy.”

“You have Coffee House pizza, though.  Also very yummy.”

“True!  What do you have planned for the rest of the day?”

“My cousin runs track for North Coast State.  He’s here at the track meet, so I’m going to go say hi to them later.  And then at 3, I’m seeing…” I trailed off, trying to remember if Carolyn and Brianna knew each other.  “Did you ever know Carolyn C. Parry?  She was my year, and she was on the worship team for U-Life.”

Brianna thought for a second.  “I don’t think I did.  I only went to U-Life a couple times freshman year, and that was a long time ago.  She’s here today?”

“Yeah, as a performer.”

“Performer?  Like, she’s playing music?”

“Yes!  I knew her from chorus.  The last time I saw her was last summer, I went to U-Life since they still meet in the summer, and she asked the group for prayer, because she had an opportunity to record a CD of some songs she wrote.”

“That’s so cool!  I might show up to that!  Where is it?”

“Three, at the Coffee House stage.”

“I’m supposed to meet up with one of my friends from last year, but if I’m not doing anything around that time, I’ll check her out!”

“Awesome!” I exclaimed.  Brianna and I continued talking for about half an hour, catching up on her classes, my job hunt, and our respective Bible study groups with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  When it came time to go see Rick run, part of me wished that Brianna could come with me, and that we could continue talking, but I also knew that if Aunt Jane saw me with a girl, she would immediately tell Mom, and I would never hear the end of it.


As I should have suspected, but did not think about until it was too late, the track meet ran late, and Rick’s race did not start until much later than scheduled.  I had plenty of time to tell the Lusks all about my year of student teaching and the disappointing chemistry show.  Rick was a little disappointed in his time in the 400 meter race, but I thought he looked respectable.  Rick’s sister Miranda, who was just finishing her last year of high school, made the trip with the rest of the family.  She had more of a reason to be interested in Rick’s track meet this year, because she would be joining Rick at North Coast State next year, also running for their track team.

Since the track meet was running late, I cut it close getting back to the Coffee House, arriving just a few minutes before Carolyn was scheduled to start playing.  Fortunately for me, the Coffee House stage was running late as well, and Carolyn was still setting up and tuning her guitar when I sat at an empty table at 2:59.

Carolyn looked up and surveyed the crowd.  “Greg!” she said, waving to me.  “You made it!  I’m setting up, but I’ll talk to you after the show, okay?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Carolyn’s music was exactly what I expected.  It was just her and an acoustic guitar.  She opened with a song about all the changes that come in life, but God staying the same through all of it, a good message for someone in that transition period between student life and adulthood.  In between songs, sometimes she shared stories about what inspired the songs.  One of the songs she performed was for her best friend, and one was a thought she had after hearing a really good sermon at church, for example.  Her music definitely had a Christian influence, but without being overly preachy or exclusive.  She closed the show with a beautifully upbeat song about chasing her dreams.

I walked straight to Carolyn’s table after the show closed.  “I would like to buy the CD, please,” I said.

“Great!” she replied enthusiastically, taking my money and handing me the plastic case.

“Great show.  I really liked it.”

“Thank you so much!  Thanks for coming!  So what are you doing this year?  Are you still in Jeromeville?”

“Yeah.  Doing the student teaching program, teaching math at Nueces High.  And right now in the middle of applying and interviewing for jobs in the fall.”

“Like, real teaching jobs?”

“Yes!  I’m nervous.  But through all this change, God remains the same, just like your song says.”

“Yes!”  Passing me a clipboard, Carolyn continued, “Sign up for my email list.  That way you’ll always know when the next show is.  And are you going to the Under Heaven Festival?  Have you heard about that?”

“I’ve heard some people talking about it, but I’m not really sure what it is.”

“Some people from U-Life and from Jeromeville Assembly of God got together to do this.  It’s a Christian music and art festival in Capital City, next month.  I’m going to be playing there; that’s my next show up this way.”

“Sounds good!  I’ll probably be there, then!”

“Do you know Sarah Masen?  She’s headlining.”

“I have one song of hers on a mixtape that we handed out to the youth groups at J-Cov.  ‘All Fall Down.’  It’s a good song.”

“She’s really good.  So make sure you stay for her show.”

“I will!

“I need to talk to these guys, but it was really good seeing you!  Hopefully I’ll see you next month?”

“Yeah!” I said as Carolyn turned to some people who appeared to be friends of hers.  I looked around the room, noticing that Brianna had never shown up, and then left the building, walking south across the Quad. (Brianna did ask me about Carolyn’s show the next morning, though, when I saw her at church.)


An important part of the Spring Picnic was the Battle of the Bands, where marching bands from Jeromeville and several other universities around the region meet on the shore of Spooner Lake, next to Marks Hall, and take turns playing songs late into the night until they are out of songs that they know.  After Carolyn’s set, I walked to Spooner Lake and watched the bands play for about an hour and a half, then walked back to where my bike was parked (near Stone Hall, I remembered) as the marching band from Capital State’s rendition of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” gradually grew softer behind me.  These marching bands always seemed to play the songs I would least expect to be set to a marching band arrangement, but that was part of the fun.  I was not much of an Alanis fan, her voice was annoying, but if I had to pick a least annoying Alanis song, it was that one.

It would be fun if Carolyn became a girl rock superstar like Alanis Morissette.  Carolyn had a way better voice than Alanis, that was for sure, and her lyrics were more appealing to me than those of Alanis.  It was exciting to think that I was at one of her first shows.  Maybe that would be a claim to fame someday.  Seeing music at the Spring Picnic just did not feel the same after Lawsuit broke up, but maybe now Carolyn would be the new musical act to look forward to seeing every year at the Spring Picnic.

Readers: I probably asked this before, but tell me about an annual event in your area that you look forward to every year.

If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.

And if you follow me on Instagram, I don’t post often these days, but I’ll be sure to post pictures of this year’s Spring Picnic, later this month.

[Alanis Morissette – You Oughta Know – warning, song contains explicit language]

Late March – Early April, 1999.  Preparing for job interviews. (#212) 

~ Greg Dennison ~ 2 Comments

“Becky?  Kayla?” I asked, as I walked past their desks.  “Can I talk to you for just a minute after class?  You’re not in trouble, and I can write you a pass in case you get to fourth period late.”

“Sure,” Kayla replied.

“Okay,” Becky added.

The bell rang about five minutes later, and as the students filed out, I gestured for Becky and Kayla to come talk to me.  After everyone left, I said, “I didn’t pass back your homework today for a reason.  I’m putting together a portfolio of student work, so that when I apply for jobs next year, I can show what my students can do to the people who would decide whether or not to hire me.  I’m going to copy your papers with your names covered up, and then give them back tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” Becky said.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Kayla said.  “Why are you applying for a new job?  Are you leaving Nueces High?”

“I’d love to stay here if I can,” I explained.  “But I’m just here for this year, as part of my student teaching class at Jeromeville.  I’m going to apply for a job here, but Mrs. Tracy said that she doesn’t think any of the other math teachers are leaving, so they might not need a new math teacher here.”

“Oh,” Becky said.

“I hope you stay here!” Kayla exclaimed.  “You’re a good teacher.”

“Thank you so much!  Let me write you two passes, so you have time to get to class.”  I grabbed two pieces of scratch paper and wrote and signed notes for each student excusing them if they arrived to class tardy. Then I headed two doors down the hall to Mr. Bowles’ classroom and his Honors Algebra II class I was assigned to observe and assist in.

The last day of class for winter quarter at the University of Jeromeville was approaching, and I had a big project due for the seminar class with Dr. Van Zandt and the other math student teachers.  For this project, we had to put together a portfolio to bring to the job fair in April.  Representatives from school districts all over the state would be coming to Jeromeville on three consecutive afternoons next month, where they would be conducting preliminary interviews for open teaching positions.  Our portfolios were to include our résumés, letters of recommendation, undergraduate transcripts, score reports from the basic skills test that all teachers in the state needed to take, and samples of student work.  Becky and Kayla had approved of my use of samples of their work, as had the only two students from Basic Math B first period who still had an A in the class.  I was a little nervous asking them, I did not want any of them to think I was being weird wanting to copy their work.  But, fortunately, all of them approved.

I chose Becky because she had been making a great effort lately to improve her grade, and it had paid off.  She had a D+ on her second quarter report card, and currently, late in the third quarter, she was getting a B.  I was not sure of what had caused the sudden improvement in Becky’s work, if her parents saw her grade and were pushing her harder, or if she took the initiative herself to bring her grade up.  It was possible that she was just naturally having an easier time with the material, although this did not entirely explain her success.  The College Ready Mathematics curriculum used at Nueces High used a technique called spiraling.  Material from previous lessons and chapters continued to appear in homework assignments, as well as quizzes and tests, for the rest of the year.  Becky got an A on the previous unit test, even successfully answering problems from the two units before that one, so she was doing something differently compared to earlier in the year.  Kayla, a consistent B student, I had chosen for my portfolio for a different reason: she had unusually clear and legible handwriting that would look good when showing her work to others.

I had already written my résumé.  I did not like it, I never felt comfortable doing things that felt like selling myself, but writing a résumé was sadly necessary in this world of job hunting.  I had been told repeatedly that a résumé is just a foot in the door, to make oneself stand out enough to get a job interview.  I was not sure if I stood out, but I tried to include as many things as I could to portray myself in a positive light.  I mentioned my research internship in Oregon from a couple years back.  I mentioned that I had worked as a math tutor with the Learning Skills Center on campus.  I also had a section on my résumé where I listed various computer-related experiences.  I said that I had experience coding in C++.  I had taken an entire class two years ago on C++, and with technology in education being one of the big fads of that day, this may catch the eye of some human resources employee somewhere.  I also wrote that I had experience coding web pages in HTML, even though my experience was very minimal, just enough to make a silly personal website, and to post the Dog Crap and Vince stories with pictures.  That may come in handy for designing a simple, straightforward school web site eventually.

I also had dreaded for a long time asking for letters of recommendation.  Dr. Van Zandt told us that he would be writing letters for all of us in the program, but most job applications require at least three letters of recommendation, and having even more than this might prove useful in case one of the letter writers were to say something honest but unflattering.  I had had so many bad days as a student teacher that I was afraid to know what Mrs. Tracy and Ms. Matthews would say about me in their letters of recommendation, but I asked them for letters anyway since they were most familiar with my teaching.  Mrs. Tracy had finished hers first, and as I read over what she wrote for the first time, I felt a wave of relief to see that it was positive.  Mrs. Tracy’s letter began with the typical introduction, explaining that I was a student at the University of Jeromeville School of Education assigned to her geometry class as a student teacher.  She continued with more specifics:

As a high school teacher with twenty-five years of experience, I have observed numerous positive teaching traits with Mr. Dennison.  First, he has an excellent command of the subject matter, and is knowledgeable and confident in mathematics.  This has allowed us to work on teaching and classroom management skills.  Second, he is always prepared for class with lessons, examples, and testing materials.  He patiently works with students, correcting them gently in a positive way while building understanding of the problem.  Also, Mr. Dennison accepts criticism well and welcomes suggestions on improving his teaching.  He sees this as a challenge to help himself become a better teacher, which is a rare quality in a student teacher beginning his career!

Mr. Dennison is showing noticeable improvement in the areas of timing lessons and classroom discipline.  He is learning to create a disruption-free environment and maintain control of the classroom.  With experience, he will continue to get better in this, as we all do.

My experience working with Mr. Dennison has been positive.  I believe that he will be a positive asset to any school faculty.

A few days later, I got a similar letter from Ms. Matthews, the master teacher for Basic Math B.  It was shorter, but mostly made the same points about my command of the subject matter and preparation, as well as still improving on things like discipline.  Thankfully, she left out the part about the time I left the students unattended for a couple minutes.  I felt that this letter put me in a positive enough light to include in my portfolio.

Just in case I needed a fourth letter, I had sent an email a few weeks ago to Dr. George Samuels, the math professor who two years ago had first encouraged me to go into teaching.  Dr. Samuels was the co-author of a high school textbook series that was widely used around the state, and when he first asked if I had ever considered teaching, he mentioned that the field of education needed more strong mathematical minds teaching students.  Having a letter of recommendation from a familiar name in the world of math education might help make my application stand out.

Before I left Nueces High that day, I made copies of Becky and Kayla’s work, as well as the two assignments from students in Basic Math B.  I covered up their names as I ran everything through the copy machine.  I wished that I had one of Becky’s assignments from a few months ago, so that I could have shown in my portfolio how much she was improving, but I had no reason to think to save one of her papers back then.

I checked my email when I got back to the house, and Dr. Samuels had written to me to say that his letter of recommendation was done, and that I could stop by his office this afternoon to pick it up.  As I walked down the hall toward his office, I passed the office of Dr. Thomas, my other favorite professor, and wondered if I should have asked her for a recommendation as well.  I had not asked, since I already had four people lined up, and of my two favorite professors, Dr. Samuels worked more closely with secondary education than Dr. Thomas, so his recommendation might carry more weight.  But if any of the letters I had were too unflattering to include in the portfolio, I could then ask Dr. Thomas for one.  The portfolio assignment was due in a couple days, but the job fair was still a few weeks away, and there was no requirement that the portfolio include the exact same letters of recommendation that I would give to the people who were hiring.

Dr. Van Zandt’s portfolio assignment was not just an academic exercise.  The UJ School of Education allowed students to keep placement files, with all of our résumés, transcripts, and letters of recommendation in one convenient place, to send out with job applications.  I would be able to reactivate this placement file at any time in the future that I was applying for a job in teaching.

For the upcoming job fair, I would submit all of the necessary paperwork to the School of Education Placement Office.  I had a list of all the school districts who would send people here to UJ to conduct interviews.  Some districts listed exactly what subjects and grades they had open positions for, but many used the hiring pool method, where they kept job applications on file regardless of what positions were open, and they contacted applicants as needed.  Most of the school districts coming to Jeromeville for the job fair were from the northern half of the state, with a few from farther away.  I had to turn in a list by the end of the week saying which school districts I was applying to, and the Education Placement Office would come up with a schedule of when each district would interview me.

I had been reading through the list of school districts that would be attending, trying to decide where to apply.  Casting a wide net, sending a lot of applications, would be a good idea, although each one required filling out paperwork, and some asked for a cover letter.  I also had ruled out several places I did not want to work.  For example, I had the impression that the Capital City School District included a lot of rough schools in run-down urban areas.  Not really the kind of place I was interested in.

I did apply to most of the school districts in the suburbs of Capital City; suburban communities seemed more like what I was used to.  Some of these communities had their own school district, some school districts included two or three distinct communities, and some cities and communities were split between multiple school districts.  Control of public schools in this state was highly localized, and local school districts were completely independent of city councils and county boards of supervisors, which led to this patchwork of school districts of widely varying sizes.

The school district for Jeromeville was not attending the job fair, but I did apply to most of the school districts adjacent to Jeromeville: Woodville, Silvey, and of course Nueces.  I also applied to Fairview, just south of Nueces.  Tyler Air Force Base was located between Fairview and Nueces, and it had its own school district, which also included a few surrounding neighborhoods and rural areas; I applied there too.

I applied to a few other places that were a little too far to commute: Silverado, across the hills west of Fairview.  Riverview and Petersburg to the southwest, across the lower part of the Capital River.  Positas, about another twenty miles south of Riverview over some low mountains.  To the southeast, down the Valley, I applied in El Monte and Ralstonville.

When I turned in my list to the Education Placement Office, I was given applications to fill out for each school district.  On these applications, my information typically needed to be filled out neatly within small spaces on the paper, and my handwriting was messy enough that filling out these applications by hand would probably not impress those who would be offering me a job.  Fortunately, I found a typewriter in the office at Nueces High that was free for teachers to use, so I spent two entire prep periods that week carefully typing my information into all of these applications.

Later that week, during the student teaching seminar, Dr. Van Zandt announced that our letters of recommendation were ready.  I waited nervously as he passed out the letters.  He handed me my letter, and I read it, anxious at first, but unable to hide my smile as I read more.  This was by far the most positive and glowing letter of recommendation that I had ever received for anything.  After the opening paragraph, in which he explained the nature of the program I was in and his role as the supervisor of the program, he continued to write about my qualifications.

Mr. Dennison has had a variety of experiences student teaching at Nueces High School, including Geometry, Basic Math B, and Algebra II Honors.  His experiences have allowed him to teach students with many different academic abilities and socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.  As a student teacher in the UJ certification program, Mr. Dennison has studied strategies for teaching students whose home language is not English, and he has practiced these strategies in his student teaching.

Mr. Dennison is a strong mathematics student with a great deal of mathematical knowledge.  He graduated with honors, with a 3.95 GPA, and received the UJ Department Citation for Outstanding Academic Achievement.  Mr. Dennison is the strongest mathematics student I have ever had in ten years of supervising this program.  He plans his teaching well, and has developed a variety of instructional strategies.  He is skilled at using computers, including experience in the classroom with software such as Excel and The Geometer’s Sketchpad.  He is willing to try different teaching approaches, and he understands the importance of being organized and prepared.

Mr. Dennison enjoys teaching and values the power of mathematics for students.  I am pleased to recommend Gregory Dennison for a teaching position in mathematics.

Wow, I thought after reading Dr. Van Zandt’s letter.  That was quite the positive recommendation.  Maybe I had a better chance of getting a teaching job than I thought I would.

I was in the odd situation that I did not get a spring break that year, because UJ and Nueces High had different weeks off.  During UJ’s week off, I still had to do my student teaching every day at Nueces High in the morning, but then I was free for the rest of the day.  The following week, Nueces High was off, and Dr. Van Zandt canceled the student teaching seminar for some of the days, since we were all teaching at schools that had that week off.  But two new classes for spring quarter started that week, so I had each of those classes twice during the week in the afternoon.  Even with that schedule, though, those two weeks were less stressful than usual, since I had half the day free each week.

During that time, on the days when I had student teaching in the morning, I took some day trips after student teaching was done, to places I was not very familiar with but had applied for jobs.  I wanted to get a feel for what the schools and neighborhoods were like.  One day I covered Silverado, Fairview, and Tyler Air Force Base, or at least the adjacent neighborhoods since I could not get on base.  Fairview was a bit rougher than I expected, but the area around Tyler Air Force Base seemed okay, and I would probably get a lot of supportive parents at a school with a lot of military families.  Silverado seemed like a wealthy area.  It was in a well-known wine growing region, the kind of place that attracted rich tourists on day trips for wine tasting.  I was not sure that I would be able to afford to live in Silverado on a teacher’s salary.

On another day, I headed south to drive around Riverview, Petersburg, and Positas.  I had only been to Riverview and Petersburg once each, and only to Positas a few times, and I had never seen any of those cities other than from the freeway.  Riverview and Petersburg were rougher than I expected them to be, although each city, Riverview especially, also had newer neighborhoods that seemed nicer and better kept.  Positas looked more like a normal suburb, but it was home to technology jobs, and a research laboratory run by the same public university system as UJ.  I was not sure how this would affect the culture, if I would feel out of place teaching the children of technology big shots, or if that background might produce students who appreciated the importance of learning mathematics.

I had plenty of new music to keep me busy during those trips.  I had recently bought two new albums on CD: R.E.M.’s Up, and the self-titled album from Sixpence None the Richer that had “Kiss Me” on it.  That song was rapidly becoming a guilty pleasure of mine, and the rest of the album was good too.  R.E.M.’s newer stuff was not terrible, but it was definitely different from the R.E.M. hits I had grown up with in my teens.  Some songs were more electronic sounding than what I was used to from R.E.M.  In addition to playing these albums multiple times in the car, I also listened to some of the mix CDs I had been making.  None of those places I went was far from Jeromeville, but none of them was particularly close either, and with all the time I spent driving around in each city, getting a feel for the areas and seeing all the high schools and middle schools up close, those two trips had me away from home for several hours each time.

When the seminar class began again, the same day that Nueces High started school again after spring break, Dr. Van Zandt gave us all our schedules for the upcoming job fair.  Each interview time slot was only fifteen minutes long, spread out among three afternoons as people’s schedules allowed.  I took a deep breath as I read the schedule.  This was starting to feel real.  I cast a wide enough net that I had fourteen job interviews, now scheduled with an actual date and time just a little over a week away.  It felt undeniable now that the next stage of my life was arriving in a hurry.

Readers: When did you realize that you were growing up, and a new stage of your life was coming? Tell me about a time like that in the comments.

If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.

[R.E.M. – Daysleeper]

February-March 1999.  Math baseball. (#209)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 8 Comments

As I drove home from student teaching on Highway 100 east, I could not help but notice that something felt different about today.  The uncomfortable cold that I had often felt walking from the classroom to the parking lot was not present today, and while I would not call the air particularly warm, it was comfortable, around seventy degrees.  Often around this time of year, the weather would turn sunny and pleasant for a week or two; this Fake Spring would be followed by more wet, cool winter weather for a while.  Today felt like it could be the start of this year’s Fake Spring.  The orchards on the side of the highway were blooming, and the vibrant green grass of the pastures stood out against the blue sky.

I decided to try something different today.  When I got home, I left the math textbook on my desk and put the textbook for the string cheese class in my backpack.  But instead of getting on my bike, I walked toward Andrews Road.  And when I reached Andrews Road, instead of waiting at the bus stop, I continued walking south, toward campus.  I crossed Andrews Road at Redbud Drive, across the street from the elementary school where we had filmed a few scenes for the Dog Crap and Vince movie last year, and took a zigzag path through a quiet, tree-lined residential neighborhood, eventually leading to Elm Street.  I was pretty sure that I had never been on this street before, and if I had, it was not one that I traversed often.

I turned south on Elm Street and crossed West Eighth Street at a light.  The stretch of Elm Street that I was now on, between Eighth and Fifth, was unusual in that it had no intersections for about a third of a mile.  Neither Sixth nor Seventh Street extended this far west.  I had read in the local news that some residents of this street had petitioned the City Council for more streetlights, because it gets unusually dark at night.  Their petition was rejected, because of the Jeromeville City Council’s pathological obsession with feeling like a small town, despite the fact that Jeromeville had a population of well over 50,000.  According to Jeromeville’s elected officials and their ilk, as they would say, streetlights would bring traffic and crime to the area.  I found this laughable; I grew up in the real world, and I knew that it was dark streets, not bright ones, that attracted crime.  But I had no concerns walking this street early in the afternoon on a sunny day.

I crossed Fifth Street, which was also the border between the city of Jeromeville and the University of Jeromeville campus, at another light.  Directly in front of me was a field used for recreational sports; I walked at a slight angle across the field until I reached Colt Avenue and continued south until the street narrowed to a bicycle path near Stone Hall and Ross Hall, where my undergraduate chemistry and physics classes had been.  Education classes were in the confusingly-named Academic Building VIII, a little ways past Ross Hall.  The name became even more confusing when considering the fact that Academic Buildings II, III, and VI existed, but Academic Buildings I, IV, V, and VII did not.  I wondered if the missing numbered buildings had existed at one time, but had been renamed after wealthy donors who wanted their names on those specific buildings.  Academic Building VIII was about two miles from my house, and it had taken thirty-two minutes to walk there.  Not bad, especially on a nice day like this.

Today was my long day of classes.  First I had the seminar with the other math student teachers.  I had nothing too significant to report.  Dr. Van Zandt talked a little bit about our upcoming portfolio project, where we would put together a portfolio of work from this year to go with our résumés and letters of recommendation, and this would be submitted with job applications.  In April, the University of Jeromeville School of Education would host a job fair right here on campus, where school administrators from all over the region would come to Jeromeville to conduct job interviews with student teachers.  I needed to think about what I could include in my portfolio.  It was overwhelming to consider that, in a couple of months, I would be applying for actual jobs as a teacher.  I was hoping that I could just get hired at Nueces High.  I was having a good year student teaching there, and Nueces was reasonably close to Jeromeville that I could still live in Jeromeville and stay involved at Jeromeville Covenant Church.

Next, after a quick bathroom stop, I walked down the hall for the string cheese class.  The class was officially called Reading In Secondary Schools, and as the title suggested, we learned about how reading skills integrate into classrooms of subjects other than reading or English.  All these years later, the thing I remember the most from this class was string cheese.  The class met once a week for three hours, from 3:10 to 6:00.  Because of this difficult schedule, Dr. Austin, the professor, gave us a snack break in the middle of the class, with each of us responsible for bringing something once during the quarter.  Early in the quarter, someone brought string cheese for the snack break, and it was such a hit with everyone that someone would make sure to bring string cheese every week.

At the start of each class, Dr. Austin, passed out a handout with the outline for the class, so we could take notes.  I was intrigued by the final topic on today’s outline.  Usually, at the end of class, Dr. Austin would demonstrate some kind of technique that could be used to stimulate classroom discussions.  For today’s outline, though, the final segment of the class just said one word, not a word I expected to see on this class outline: “Baseball.”

By the time we reached the “Baseball” part of class, it was 5:17pm, and I was full of string cheese and potato chips.  I had also eaten a banana and a bunch of grapes, because fruit made my snack healthy and that was totally how nutrition worked.  Dr. Austin passed out a two-page article for us to read as he explained that Baseball was an activity for classroom discussions.  Our tables were arranged in a U-shape around three walls of the classroom, and as we read the article silently, Dr. Austin placed four empty chairs in the middle of the classroom in the shape of a diamond, positioned like the four bases on a baseball field.  

“So I have some questions about the article that I prepared on cards here,” Dr. Austin explained.  “We’re going to take turns being the batter, and the batter will answer the question and build on the last batter’s discussion.  I’m just going to go around the circle, taking turns.  Mike, you’re up first.  What is the author saying about the use of reading materials in classrooms?”

Mike, a student teacher from the science program, looked at his copy of the article and replied, “Reading material in classrooms needs to be age-appropriate.”

“Good,” Dr. Austin said.  “You can go to first base.”  Mike sat at the chair in the first base position as Dr. Austin continued, “Melissa?  Anything to add?”

Melissa Becker, from the math student teaching program, said, “He said here that not all students are ready for grade-level reading material.  So it’s important to make accommodations for students who aren’t.”

“Good.  So you now go to first base, and Mike, advance to second base.”

I continued watching, answering a question myself when it was my turn, as we moved from one base to another.  I also tried to think about how to adapt this for a math class.  We did not read and discuss articles in math class, obviously.  But maybe I could have students answer math problems in order to advance on the bases.  I could work with this.  I had walked to campus today, but I did not feel like walking home two miles in the dark.  I took the bus home, thinking about making Dr. Austin’s baseball activity into a math activity the whole time.


About a week and a half later, after much planning, I walked from the teacher’s lounge at Nueces High to Judy’s classroom, ready to try my new idea in my actual student teaching classroom.  I arrived to the classroom a few minutes early and put signs on the four walls, labeled “First Base,” “Second Base,” “Third Base,” and “Home.”

“You have a test tomorrow, remember,” I announced to the class.  “Today we’re going to try a new activity I learned from one of my professors.  It’s called Baseball.”  At the mention of baseball, a few excited gasps and murmurs arose from the class.  “Everyone get out a sheet of paper,” I instructed them.  I had discussed my idea with Judy earlier this week, and she suggested having everyone do the problems on paper, whether or not it was their turn at bat, so that I could collect the papers and grade it like an assignment.  This gave every student an incentive to participate.

After I explained the rules of the activity and answered students’ questions, I shuffled the cards that had the students’ names on them and picked one.  “Andy,” I called out.  I had prepared slides in advance with problems like those from the upcoming test, and stacked them in random order.  Andy Rawlings looked up as I put one of these problems.  “Find x,” I told Andy.  “Everyone else, you find x too.  Write your work on the paper.”  Andy solved the problem without much difficulty, using cosine to find the missing side length in a right triangle.  “Go to first base,” I said, pointing at the sign on the wall.  Andy got out of his desk and stood at the First Base sign.

Next I called on T.J. McDuff, a quiet freshman whose proficiency in mathematics many of his classmates did not recognize.  He had the only perfect score on the last unit test, and when the students were comparing their scores with the others sitting near them, many of T.J.’s neighbors in the class seemed surprised that he got a perfect score.  I put another straightforward problem with trigonometric ratios on the screen, which T.J. solved correctly.  He walked to first base, and Andy walked to second.

I called Kayla Welch next, and put a problem on the screen that was a little more complicated, requiring the inverse tangent to find an angle measure.  Kayla thought about what to do, tried something on her calculator, and sheepishly said the wrong answer.  “Sorry, that’s incorrect,” I said.  The next card was Eduardo Ortiz.  I said, “Eduardo?  Same problem?”  Eduardo answered the problem correctly, and moved to first base, advancing T.J. and Andy to the next bases.

Angelica Maldonado raised her hand, and asked, “Mr. Dennison?  What’s the object of this game?”

“We’re just practicing the kind of questions that will be on the test?”

“Are we keeping score?”

“Mostly just for fun.  You want to try to get on base and get your teammates home.”

“We should play in two teams, against each other,” Andy said from where he stood on third base.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.  “This is my first time doing anything like this, so I’m open to hearing your suggestions.  Maybe I’ll do things differently next time.  Let’s continue what we’re doing today, and you can tell me your thoughts at the end of the period.”

I continued running the baseball activity as I had planned, calling on students and giving them practice test problems, as the students walked the bases around the classroom.  But even before the period ended, before I asked any of them for suggestions, I knew that Andy was right.  Baseball was meant to be a competitive game.  Dr. Austin’s suggestion might work well for classes where students discussed articles that they had read.  But mathematics was not this kind of class.  Math had problems to be worked out with correct answers, which did not always lend themselves to the kind of discussion that Dr. Austin had led in his activity.  For next time, I needed to turn this into a competitive activity with two teams, and I needed to keep score.


A few weeks later, the geometry class was preparing for a test on surface area and volume.  Two days before the test, I began class by saying, “I thought about some of your suggestions for the baseball review game, and I think this is going to be more fun.  First, you’re going to be competing against each other.”  I pointed with my finger, making an imaginary line down the middle of the classroom, then pointed to one side, and then the other, as I said, “This side of the room, you’re batting first, and this side, you’re fielding.”  Some students reacted excitedly to this as I continued.  “I’m going to call on one person from each team to answer the same question.  If the team that is batting gets it right first, then the batter gets to go on the bases, like last time.  But if the fielding team gets the question first, then the batter is out.  And after three outs, we switch which team is batting and which is fielding, just like in real baseball.”

“I like this game better,” Andy said excitedly.

“I hope you will.”  I pointed to my stack of overhead projector transparencies, on which I had written the questions, and continued, “Also, the questions are either singles, doubles, triples, or home runs, depending on the difficulty of the question.  I have put the questions in random order.  And you can get help from your teammates, but if you get help, it counts as a walk.  You only go to first base, and the other runners don’t advance if they don’t have to.  But if you get the question on your own, before the fielding team, you get to go however many bases the question is worth.”

Andy spoke up again.  “This is gonna be fun.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I said, “but please don’t talk when the teacher is talking.”

“Sorry.”

The first problem in my stack of slides was a straightforward one about finding the volume of a triangular prism.  T.J. answered correctly and advanced to first base.  Next, I put up a word problem, involving a solid block of metal that had to be melted down to make cylindrical coins.  “How many coins can you make from this block of metal?” I asked.  After working for a few minutes, Andy answered correctly for the fielding team.  “One out,” I said.  Turning to Andy, I added, “Good thing you got that one, because it would have been a home run.”

“Aww,” several members of T.J.’s team said.

T.J. did score when a teammate answered the next question correctly for a triple, but the fielding team got two correct in quick succession after that for the second and third outs.  The runner stranded on third went back to his desk.  I continued calling names and giving questions; the batting team got enough questions right to load the bases, but the fielding team had answered two right for two outs.  “Kayla batting, Eduardo fielding,” I called.  The two of them walked up to the chalkboard, and I put a problem on the screen, to find the volume of a shape that looked like a truncated cone, with the tip cut off.

Eduardo stared at the problem and started writing some calculations on the board for finding the volume of a cylinder.  He quickly raised his hand for me to check his answer.  “Incorrect,” I said.  He looked confused, having not figured out yet that a truncated cone was not a cylinder.  The circle at the top was smaller than the one at the bottom.

Kayla, meanwhile, had written the formula for the volume of a cone, but when she realized that the figure was not a cone, and also not a cylinder, she called on her teammates for help.  Andy and Angelica ran up to the board to help Kayla.  Andy copied the truncated cone to the board and drew dotted lines above it to fill in the missing part of the cone. “Subtract the volume of the big cone minus the small cone that’s missing at the top,” he said to Angelica and Kayla.  They began working on this excitedly, but paused a few seconds later when they realized that they did not know the height of the missing part.  The three of them whispered to each other, trying to figure out what to do, but keeping it quiet enough so that Eduardo and his teammates would not hear.  Eduardo had also asked for help, and his team seemed to get stuck at the exact same place.  I watched the whole thing, wondering if anyone would figure this out.

Suddenly, maybe thirty seconds to a minute later, I heard furious scribbling on the batting side.  Angelica had drawn a right triangle, representing the axis, radius, and slant height of the cone, with a smaller right triangle embedded inside where the missing part would be.  She had labeled the missing height “x” and was solving a proportion to find the missing height, something that we had covered extensively in an earlier chapter of the textbook.  She ran to her desk to get a calculator as Andy stood in front of the board, making sure that the other team could not see the breakthrough that they had discovered.  I turned and looked at Judy, who smiled and nodded at me.  She clearly seemed to have a positive impression of my skills at getting the class to participate and work together, at least today.  Score a win for the student teacher.

Kayla, Angelica, and Andy enthusiastically raised their hands.  “Mr. Dennison!” Kayla called out.  I looked at their work and said, “That is correct.”  Kayla’s entire team erupted into applause.  “That’s only a walk, since you had help, but the bases were loaded, so the runner scores from third.”  

Kayla’s team scored once more, and that score of two runs to one held to the end of the period.  “One more thing,” I announced.  “I put all of the problems for today on a worksheet.  So, the paper you’ve been writing on today, staple it to this worksheet, and any problem from the worksheet that you didn’t do in class today, that’s your homework.  I passed out the worksheet as the students packed up their things.

“I liked this baseball game better than the last one,” Andy said.  “You should do this every time we have a test.”

“Yeah!” Kayla added.


In my decades of experience teaching, as I write this, I have been made to attend many training sessions and professional development workshops.  A significant number of them have dealt with the topic of reading and writing in subject area classrooms.  And, almost always, these sessions have something in common: the presenter will say something like, “And you can use these techniques in every subject area classroom.  Except math.  I couldn’t find an example of how to use this in math class.”  In some years, the school where I was working focused schoolwide on reading, or writing, and I was required to do certain reading and writing activities in my math class.  It always felt so forced and inauthentic.

I have continued leading games for the students to review for tests throughout my career.  Over the next few years, I would refine the rules of Math Baseball to allow for more scoring.  I also included a feature where, if the player got the question right on the first try without help, the team got to draw a card with the name of a special baseball play on it, like Double Play, or Sacrifice Fly, or Stolen Base.  These could be used on future plays.

I also experimented with other games; some were more successful than others.  Early in my paid teaching career, in addition to Math Baseball, I also started playing Jeopardy!, based on the TV game show, to review for tests.  And I modified Math Baseball slightly to make Math Football, where the questions were worth different numbers of yards based on difficulty, and I kept score like in football instead of baseball.  I have also continued my idea of making a worksheet with all of the problems, and then assigning whichever problems were not already done in class for homework.  Most of the time, students enjoyed these games, although some definitely got into it more than others.  These games tend to be something that students remember about my class for years to come.

At the time, when I was student teaching, the Math Baseball experience felt like an indication that things were starting to come together.  I had found something to do in my role as a teacher that engaged the students in a way that they enjoyed.  The job fair was coming soon.  I would have an opportunity to present these successes to people looking to hire new teachers, and by the fall, I would be employed as a teacher in a high school somewhere, playing Math Baseball with a new class of students.  Hopefully they would enjoy my teaching as much as Kayla and Andy and Angelica seemed to.  All of those years of confusion, coming to Jeromeville with no clear idea of what I wanted to study, the rude awakenings in classes that were more difficult than I expected, the disillusionment with mathematics research after that summer in Oregon, all of that was behind me now.

Readers: Tell me in the comments about something you have done, for a class or for your job, that went really well.

If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.

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February 12, 1999.  My master teacher made me cry. (#208)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 2 Comments

Last month, when the new semester at Nueces High School started, some students changed their schedules.  In third period geometry with Judy Tracy, one of the classes I was assigned to for student teaching, eight students left over the first week of the semester.  I asked Judy why everyone was leaving, and she said that the school had a very open policy about letting students change their schedules.  “Sometimes they just don’t like the teacher. Or they want to be in class with their friends,” she explained. “Personally I think they shouldn’t let students change just to be with their friends, or with another teacher.”

“They don’t like the teacher? So these students switched out of this class because they don’t like me?”

“No!  Well, we don’t know.  We don’t have to ask them why they changed,” Judy explained to me.  “Also, some of them might have wanted to change one of their other classes, and it didn’t work out with their schedule unless math class changes too.  So it might have nothing to do with you.

“Hmm,” I said.  I still felt like all of this sent a message that some students did not like me.  It was discouraging.

One new student did transfer into the geometry class, a sophomore girl named Angelica.  She seemed like a decent student.  Judy had her in a different period the first half of the year, and she got a B.  Kate Matthews’ Basic Math B class got two new students this semester.  One was a loud redhead named Brittany who often made jokes about smoking marijuana.  I was not sure what the chances were that I would have two red-haired stoner girls in the same class, but it was pretty much the last thing I needed to deal with.  Marie, the other red-haired stoner, did not seem to talk often with Brittany, but I made sure to seat them at opposite ends of the room, just in case.  The other new student was a teaching assistant, not a math student, a senior named Kara.  I usually had Kara do routine tasks like passing back papers, when I needed her to, but I often did not have much work for her to do.  Nothing in my teacher training had really prepared me to have a TA.  And because of that, I had a misunderstanding that led to one of my worst days of student teaching.

Everything seemed normal when I left for Nueces on that Friday morning.  Monday was the Presidents’ Day holiday, so the youth group kids from church were leaving at noon for Winter Camp.  I had lots of fun at Winter Camp last year, but this year I was not going. I would not get back from student teaching in time, I had class this afternoon, and I had a lot of studying to do this weekend.

I arrived at Nueces High just three minutes before the first bell, much later than I wanted to.  Police cars and tow trucks were clearing an accident on the freeway, and traffic slowed down for a while.  Also, approaching a school a few minutes before the start of the day always creates a traffic mess, as students and their parents all drive to the school at the last minute. I parked in my reserved spot and rushed to Kate’s classroom, at the opposite end of campus from my parking spot.

“Where were you?” Kate asked when I walked in.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Sorry.  There was an accident on 100, and traffic was backed up.”

“The bell is about to ring.  I’m going to head to the work room.  Do you have everything under control?”

“I think so,” I said.  I did not yet realize that I did not have everything under control.  I wrote today’s assignment on the board, took attendance, and then realized that I had a problem.  When I was attending school at Plumdale High, we would listen to the announcements read every day over the public address system.  This was the norm in 1999, as it still is in schools today.  But Nueces High currently occupied a building constructed in 1950, and there was no public address system.  The morning announcements were printed on paper, and placed in each teacher’s mailbox, to be picked up when we arrived at school that morning.  Since I had mostly taken over first period Basic Math B, I had been getting the announcements from the mailbox and reading them to the class myself.  Kate would sometimes spend time in the teacher work room, leaving me to myself in the classroom.  I liked that level of independence; it made me feel like a real teacher.  But, since I had arrived late today, the only thing on my mind was to make it to the classroom on time, so that I could get class started.  I had not taken the time to stop by the office, and now, as a result, I had no announcements to read.

I started to panic.  The announcements must be read.  Students must know this important information.  This aging campus also had no phones and no computers in the classroom, so I had no way of getting a message to the office that I needed the announcements.  I looked around the room, trying to stay calm, when my eyes fell on Kara.  Of course.  She could help here.

“Kara,” I said.  “I forgot to get the announcements from my box in the office this morning.  Can you keep an eye on the students?  I’ll be back in two minutes.”

“Sure,” Kara replied.

I jogged from the portables in the back, across the outside of the smaller of the two permanent buildings, and into the office, grabbing my copy of the morning announcements.  I turned around to jog back when I heard Ms. Matthews’ voice call out, “Greg!  Who’s watching the students?”

“Kara is in there.  I’m going right back now.  I forgot to get the announcements.”

“Don’t ever leave students unsupervised in the classroom!” Kate said, almost shouting.  “Go!”

I turned and ran back to the classroom.  Ms. Matthews seemed really upset.  I did not see it as that big of a deal.  When I was in high school, I had teachers occasionally leave their rooms unlocked at lunch with students inside.  I could remember at least one time when the teacher actually had to go to the office during class time, and he left the class unsupervised for a few minutes.  When I got back to Kate’s classroom, everything seemed in order, and Kara and the other students were sitting in their seats waiting, so I calmly read the announcements.  After that, I continued presenting the lesson and walking around while the students worked.  Kate returned about ten minutes before the end of the period and sat at her desk.  I could see a hint of disapproval in her expression.

The bell rang, ending the period, and students left the classroom.  The campus of Nueces High was so large and spread out that students had a long eight-minute passing period between classes.  This gave Kate plenty of time to lecture me after the students left, while her second period students trickled up to the closed door and waited outside.

“You can’t ever leave students unsupervised,” she said sternly.  “It’s not safe.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “I forgot to pick up the announcements, I was running late because of the accident on the highway, and I didn’t know what else to do.  I figured–”

“Why didn’t you send Kara to pick up the announcements?”

Of course there was a simple solution.  At least there would have been, for someone experienced with working in schools and having a student TA.  But that was not me.  “I didn’t know she was allowed to leave class,” I explained.  “I didn’t think of that because I’ve never had a student TA, I’ve never had experience with student TAs, and no one ever explained that to me.”

“What if something happens to one of the students?  And if you leave students unsupervised, they’re going to steal things off the desk and destroy things in the classroom.  Someone could have stolen your stuff out of your backpack.  Did you ever think about that?”

“Obviously not!” I said, irritated and close to tears.  “I’m sorry.”

“You’re lucky nothing happened while you were gone,” Kate said.  “Don’t ever leave students unsupervised again.”

“I know.”

“I need to let second period in.  And you probably have work to do.  Just remember, you have Kara as your TA.  You can have her do things like that for you.”

“I know,” I said.  I grabbed my backpack and walked to the teacher work room in the office, tears clearly visible now, hoping that no students who knew me would see me crying.  I sat at the table in the teacher work room, grabbed a nearby box of tissue, and let the tears come, no longer trying to hold back.

With no class assigned to me second period, I had gotten to know some of the other teachers with prep time second period, since they were often in the work room at the same time I was.  Two of them were there when I arrived, an older woman named Sally Stein who taught English, and a middle-aged man named Jim Emerson who taught science.  “Are you okay, Greg?” Sally asked as I cried and blew my nose.

“No,” I blubbered.  “I messed up.  And Kate yelled at me.  Well, not yelled.  Scolded.”

“What happened?” Jim asked.  “Kate understands you’re still learning.”

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself.  “I got here late because there was an accident on the freeway and traffic was slow.”

“You were in an accident?” Sally asked.

“Not me.  The accident happened before I was there.  But traffic was slow because they were still clearing it and a lane was blocked.”

“Oh, okay.  I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Since I got here late, I forgot to stop at the office and get the announcements.  When I realized that, I ran up to the office with students in the room.  I didn’t think it was that big a deal, since I was only gone two minutes maybe.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea,” Sally explained.  “But it sounds like Kate could have handled it better.”

“I had teachers leave the room unlocked at lunch sometimes when I was in school.  And once my teacher went up to the office for about five minutes in the middle of class,” I explained.  “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a teacher.  Most of the students in that class have bad grades.”  I grabbed another tissue and started crying again.

“Greg?” Jim asked.  “Do you want to go for a walk with me?  Would that help?”

That was not the reaction I was expecting, but at this point, a chance to talk this out with someone one-on-one sounded appealing.  “Sure,” I said.

“Sally, will you be here to watch our things?” Jim asked.

“Yes,” she replied.  “Go walk.”

Jim and I walked across the parking lot out toward Buena Vista Avenue.  “You were probably in honors classes when you were a student,” he said. “Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Your teachers who left students alone in the classroom, they probably knew that you were good students who behaved, so they trusted you.  And I don’t want to sound judgmental, but most students aren’t trustworthy that way.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. “Especially those Basic Math B students first period. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s okay.  We were all new teachers once, learning to do this.  We all have good days and bad days.  Don’t beat yourself up.”

“I’m trying.  It’s just been so hard lately.  The students can be so mouthy.  And yesterday only four of them turned in their homework.”

“That sounds like a typical Basic Math class,” Jim replied, chuckling.  “But don’t think of yourself as a bad teacher. I overheard some of my students yesterday talking about how much they love your class.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  It was Stacie Edwards and Kayla Welch.  They were lab partners a few days ago, and they were talking about you. I don’t think they’re in Basic Math, though.”

“Kayla’s in Judy’s geometry class that I took over.  And Stacie is in the honors Algebra II class with Mitch Bowles that I’m helping out with.”

“Well, they think you’re a great teacher.  So focus on that instead.”

“I’ll try.”

“Hey, can I pray for you?” Jim asked.  “Are you comfortable with that? I know Josh McGraw told me you both go to the same church in Jeromeville.”

I was vaguely aware from reading announcements that Jim was the advisor for the student Christian club that met weekly at lunch.  Someone to pray with sounded like exactly what I needed right now.  “Yes,” I said.

Jim stopped walking and gently laid a hand on my shoulder.  “Father God, I thank you for bringing Greg here to Nueces High.  I thank you for all that you are teaching him about education, and his future.  Please, now, give him comfort on this difficult day.  Remind him that it is okay to still be learning.  Help him to move on from this and come out stronger on the other side.  I pray for the rest of his classes today, that he will have positive experiences with the students, and that he will know that he is making a difference in their lives.  I pray that you will continue to put him in the right place, giving him the words to meet these students where they are, and to show them the kind of love that Jesus shows us.  I pray that you will speak to him, and remind him that he is a beloved child of God.”  I nodded as he continued, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

I looked up and took a deep breath.  “Thank you,” I said.

“We should head back now, to make sure we get there in time.”

“Yeah,” I said.  Nueces High was a couple hundred yards behind us now; we were across the street from the fast food restaurants that students frequented for lunch.

As we turned around, headed back to the school, Jim asked, “Which church do you and the McGraws go to?”

“Jeromeville Covenant.”

“Okay.  I’ve heard of that one.  I know some people in Jeromeville, but they go to First Baptist.”

“I know where that is.  I know some people who go there too.”

“My family and I go to Grace Baptist Church, on Nut Farm Road.”

“I don’t know that one off the top of my head.”

“It’s good.  It’s been around for a while.  We’ve been going there since we moved to Nueces, in 1982.”

“That’s good to be a part of a community for that long.  I’ve only been at J-Cov for a little over two years, since the fall of my junior year as an undergrad.  I grew up Catholic, and I went to Mass at the Newman Center before that.”

“Interesting.  Have you had any problems with your family, with you leaving Catholicism?”

“Not really.  Mom has always had the attitude that other Christians follow the same Jesus too.  Grandma was a little uneasy at first, since she’s always been much more traditional.  But… Are you familiar with the Urbana convention for Christian students, in Illinois?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“I went to that in ’96, and Mom told me that Grandma was worried that I was running off to join a cult.  But then Grandma told that to one of her old lady friends, and that lady said that her son went to Urbana in the ’60s, and suddenly Grandma was okay with it, knowing that her friend was okay with it.”

“That’s funny.  Your grandma sounds nice.  Do you see her often?”

“Yes, whenever I go see my parents in Plumdale, every few months.  Grandma lives in Gabilan, less than ten miles from Plumdale.  She’s 78.  And Grandpa just turned 81.”

“I like that part of the state.  My wife and I take weekend getaways to Santa Lucia a couple times a year.”

“Nice.”

As we stepped back on campus, Jim said, “It’s almost time for class.  Will you be okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for listening.  And praying.”

“Any time.  Let me know any time you need to talk.”

“I will.”

When I walked into Judy’s classroom for geometry, before class started, she asked me if I was all right.  Apparently she noticed that I had been crying.  “I had a rough morning,” I explained.  I told her briefly about everything that had happened.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Judy said.  Then, lowering her voice, she added, “Just between you and me, Kate isn’t always the nicest person to be around.”

“I see,” I replied, chuckling.


The rest of that class went just fine, as did fourth period assisting in Mitch’s class.  When I got to the car to drive back to Jeromeville, that song that says “I want to push you around” was on the radio.  Maybe Kate wanted to push me around, to make me feel like a bad teacher, but I just needed to make sure I did not let her.  I made a mistake today, but I would learn from it, and I would come out the other side a better teacher, knowing more about how the world of education worked.

I had Jeromeville Christian Fellowship that night.  Eddie Baker, my friend who graduated with me last year, was now on staff part time with JCF.  He got paid to be a leader for the group, being supported by contributions from individuals and churches the same way that full-time missionaries are.  It was his turn to speak tonight, and he spoke about John 4, when Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman at the well.  “The Scripture says that Jesus ‘had’ to go through Samaria.  But if you look at a map of Jesus’ route, he does not have to go through Samaria at all.  He went out of his way to go to Samaria, because he knew that he had work to do there, to talk to that outcast woman.”

After JCF ended, I walked around the room to talk to people, and I told Eddie, “I was kind of on the receiving end of a moment like that today, being the outcast who got prayed for.”  I went on to tell him about everything that had happened at school today.

“Wow,” he said.  “God put that other teacher in your life so that your paths would cross at this very moment, when you needed him.”

“Yeah.  I guess so.”

“And maybe someday you’ll be like that, being just the person a student needs.  You can’t really pray with students in public school, but you can be like Jesus to them without openly praying.”

“Yeah.”

“Or maybe you’ll find yourself praying with a new teacher who is struggling, like what happened to you today.”

“Yes.  I like that perspective.”

I worked at one other school later in my career that did not have a public address system, and in seven years I never once forgot to pick up the announcements from the office in the morning.  My career as a teacher has not been easy.  I had many more rough days, and I will have many more before I retire.  That was just how life worked.  I felt like a screw-up sometimes.  I felt like a bad teacher sometimes.  But I also had many good moments.  I just needed to remember to focus on the positive, do the best I could, and not beat myself up for not being perfect.  And I needed to remember to look for those moments like Jesus had at the well, or like Jim had with me today, or like I had with my friends freshman year when I blew up after a bad day and they prayed with me.  Maybe I was going to be exactly the positive influence that some outcast out there needed.

Readers: Has a teacher or supervisor ever made you cry? Or have you ever been in that role and made someone else cry? Tell me about it in the comments, if it isn’t too painful to talk about.

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February 1, 1999.  Three-dimensional graphs, a pretty girl, string cheese, and Delaware. (#206)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 5 Comments

In the mathematics education program at the University of Jeromeville, students were assigned to two classrooms for the year, one for students on grade level and one for students below grade level.  After spending the first couple of months observing and assisting the classes, we would gradually begin taking on more responsibilities in the class, so that by January we would be doing all of the teaching and lesson planning for those classes.  I was doing that now for Basic Math B with Ms. Matthews first period, and for geometry with Mrs. Tracy third period.

Starting at the halfway point of the year, each of us in the program added a third class to just observe and assist, but with no plans to take over that class.  So in addition to the other two classes, I was now attending Algebra II with Mr. Bowles fourth period.  This kept me at Nueces High until around noon, an hour longer than I had before.  On my first day in Mr. Bowles’ class, I noticed that a few of the students already seemed to know who I was, presumably because they had friends in one of my other two classes.  For example, one blonde freckle-faced girl from Mr. Bowles’ class, Stacie Edwards, was best friends with Kayla Welch, one of the more memorable students from Mrs. Tracy’s class.  Stacie seemed to take an instant liking to me.

“Mr. Dennison?” Stacie asked.  “Can you help me with this?  I don’t get this at all.”

Today Mr. Bowles had demonstrated how to graph a linear function in three dimensions.  I remember being Stacie’s age and seeing a lot of my own classmates struggle with this, mostly just because of the difficulty of drawing a three-dimensional surface on two-dimensional paper.  “I remember how to graph lines,” she said, “but why is there this third axis going diagonally?”

“It’s not diagonal,” I explained.  “It’s three-dimensional.  There are three variables, x, y, and z, so we need three axes in three dimensions. Imagine it coming out of the paper.”  I pointed to Stacie’s pencil pouch and asked, “Can you grab me two pens or pencils out of there?  I want to show you something.”

“Sure,” she replied, handing me a pen and a highlighter.  I picked up the pencil she already had on her desk and held the three writing implements carefully in my hand, arranging them mutually perpendicular to each other.  “These two are the ones that look like a two-dimensional graph on the paper, and the one that’s drawn diagonally is this one.”  I awkwardly gestured with my few free fingers to the third axis, coming out from the other two at a right angle.

“Oh!” Stacie exclaimed.  I see!  It’s like when you draw a box, like this, and you have to make these sides diagonal so it looks 3-D.”  Stacie sketched a three-dimensional box in the margin of her paper.

“Exactly!” I said.  I reminded her how to find the intercepts on each axis, and then I told her to connect these three points to make a triangle.  “Instead of a line, like a two-dimensional graph, the graph of a linear equation in three variables is a plane, a flat surface that goes on forever.  And it’s the flat surface that contains this triangle.  So if you imagine that this triangle goes on forever in all directions, then any point on that flat surface, you can plug into the equation and it’ll be true.”

“I think I kind of get it now!” Stacie said, smiling.  “Thank you!”

I looked up and continued walking around the room.  I noticed that Mr. Bowles had been watching our entire interaction; he smiled and nodded.

The bell for the end of fourth period rang a few minutes before noon.  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I said to Mr. Bowles.

“Yes!” Mr. Bowles replied.  “Good job today, Greg.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

Although this varied widely from place to place, back in my parents’ generation in this part of the world it was common for a high school to have an open campus.  Students were allowed to leave campus as long as they made it back in time for class, so students would go off campus for lunch sometimes.  By the final years of the twentieth century, open campi were less common, because of concerns over student safety and students misbehaving in the community.  When I attended Plumdale High as a student in the early 1990s, it was a closed campus, although it would not have mattered much since Plumdale High was in the middle of a field, two miles from the nearest restaurant.

Nueces High still had an open campus in 1999; a few fast food restaurants were within walking distance from the school, and some older students would drive farther into town to lunch.  As I walked to the parking lot, I saw groups of students leaving the school for lunch.  Tim Rich and Matt Hernandez, two lovable loudmouths from my class with Ms. Matthews, saw me going to my car.  Tim asked, “Where are you going for lunch, Mr. Dennison?”

I was confused for a minute, because I was not going to lunch.  It took my brain a few seconds to process the fact that Tim was unaware of my schedule as a student teacher.  “I’m not going to lunch,” I said.  “I’m only here in the mornings.  In the afternoons I have classes back at Jeromeville.”

“What classes are you taking?” he asked.

“Classes where you learn how to be a teacher!” Matt explained.

“Yes.  That’s exactly it,” I said.  “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Enjoy your lunch.”

“Bye, Mr. Dennison!” Tim shouted as he followed Matt to his car.


I took the bus to campus that day, since it would be dark by the time I got home.  The bus arrived around 1:30, giving me half an hour to kill before my class.  “Woo-hoo-hoo, it’s all been done, woo-hoo-hoo, it’s all been done,” I quietly sang to myself as I walked across the street from the bus stop to the Memorial Union.  I had heard that song in the car on the way home, and it had been stuck in my head for the entire bus ride.  I liked that song.  A few days earlier, Mom had sent me an email, just catching me up on her last couple days, and she had written, “I heard this new song on the radio the other day.  I forget what it was called, but I liked it, except in the chorus there’s this annoying ‘woo-hoo-hoo’ part.”  That was all I needed to know exactly what Mom was talking about; I replied, “That song you heard, could it be ‘It’s All Been Done’ by Barenaked Ladies?”  Mom replied in her next email that that was in fact the song she was thinking of, and I laughed that I knew it just from the lyrics “woo-hoo-hoo.”

I grabbed a copy of the Daily Colt with the intention of reading it and doing the crossword puzzle before I had to walk to my class, but secretly hoping that I would run into some friends instead and be able to hang out with them before class, which happens sometimes in the Memorial Union Coffee House. When I got there, I looked around, wondering if I was going to have to sit at a table with a stranger, since I did not see any empty tables at first glance.  As I walked across the room, scanning for an empty seat, I spotted a familiar head of curly blonde hair sitting alone at a table, eating a bagel.  With my luck, she was probably saving the table for some kind of private meeting, but it was worth asking.

“Brianna?” I asked.  “Can I join you, or are you saving these seats?”

“Greg!” Brianna replied.  “Go ahead!  I’m meeting Chelsea at 2, she has class until then, but you can stay here until then.”

“That’s perfect,” I replied. “That’s when I have class.”

“Great!  Did you have class this morning?”

“I have student teaching every morning,” I explained.  “At Nueces High.”

“Oh, that’s right!  I knew that.  I forget sometimes, you have a different schedule.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m old.  I graduated.”

“Oh, come on,” Brianna chuckled.  “You’re not that old.  You just graduated last year.  You’re, what, twenty-two?”

“Yeah,” I answered.  Brianna was nineteen, a sophomore.  I wondered sometimes if I was too old to be hanging around younger students, but so far it had never seemed to be a problem.

“How long is the student teaching program?” she asked.  “Are you done after this year?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed.  “During spring quarter, we’re gonna learn about putting together portfolios for job applications.  And there will be a career fair here on campus, where school districts around the state will have preliminary job interviews.”

“That’s exciting!”  Brianna took a bite of her bagel, and then said, “I saw Jed Wallace a few minutes ago.  He sold me this bagel.  He’s your roommate, is that right?”

“Yeah.  He started working here at the beginning of winter quarter.  He seems to like it.”

“Are you guys going to live together again next year?”

“We haven’t really talked about it.  Our house is owned by an individual, not one of the big corporate apartment complexes, so we don’t have to follow the same schedule that the others in town follow, where everything goes up for lease March 1 and they’re all full by March 15.  Jed is your year, and Brody is a junior, so they’ll still be in town.  Sean is graduating in June, so we’ll have to fill his spot.  And as for me, it’ll all depend on whether I get a job close enough to commute from Jeromeville.  I might, I might not.  Hopefully our landlord will be okay with me not knowing until May.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that, you looking for a job.  So it sounds like you want to stay in Jeromeville if you can?”

“I could go either way.  I really like it at Nueces High, and if they have a job for me next year, I’d like to stay there.  But that’s no guarantee.  I have a community here in Jeromeville, and I’m involved with enough things at church that it feels like home now.  But I’m not gonna limit my job search to here.  Maybe I’ll find somewhere I like better.”

“That’s a good idea.  Keep your options open,” Brianna said.  “Chelsea and I are going to live together next year.  That’s what we’re meeting to talk about.  My roommates this year are making other plans for next year, and some of hers are too.  I hope we can get a house, and not have to live in an apartment again.  We’ve talked to Morgan and Jill about looking for a house together.  We might have room for more than four, depending on how big of a house it is.”

“That would be nice.  Good luck with that.”  After a lull of a few seconds, I asked, “So how was your weekend?”

“It was good!  Didn’t do much.  Just caught up on studying.  And laundry.  How was yours?”

“It was good.  I was at the De Anza house yesterday.  They had a men-only football championship game party.”

“I heard about that.  What was up with that?  Why was it only for men?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I didn’t make the rules.  And I didn’t really care who won, Denver or Atlanta.  I just know I was excited to watch the game with those guys again.  Three years ago, it was on the weekend of the pro football championship that I first met Eddie Baker and the housemates he had then.  That weekend changed my life.”

“Aww.  That’s sweet.”

“Yeah.  Now that I think about it, I think Eddie and John Harvey are the only ones from that house who are part of the De Anza house today.  And they didn’t live on De Anza then.  They were on Baron Court in south Jeromeville.  A lot of JCF groups lived right near each other that year, on Baron or around the corner on Valdez Street.”

“I see.  Is that why there was no X-Files watch party last night?  Because of the men’s football party?”

“Not just because of the party, because of the game in general.  X-Files wasn’t on last night at all.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“So are you done with class today?” I asked her.  “Just waiting for Chelsea?”

“I wish.  I have English at three.”

“You’re still gonna get home before I do.  Monday is my long day of class.  I have my student teaching seminar at 2, and then after that a three-hour class on Reading In Secondary Schools.”

“Reading?  But you’re gonna teach math, right?”

“Yes.  This is a required class for secondary teachers of all subjects.  Students have to read in every class, so we learn how reading affects all subjects.”

“That makes sense.  Did you say three hours?” Brianna asked, incredulously.

“Yeah.  So I’m on campus until 6:00.  I only have this class once a week, though.  I don’t know why they didn’t do three one-hour classes or two hour-and-a-half classes, like literally every other class ever.  But I don’t make the schedule.”

“I would probably fall asleep in a three-hour class, unless it was, like, a lab or something.”

“This is the first time I’ve had a three-hour class that wasn’t a lab.  But there’s a snack break halfway through, so that’s nice.”

“That’s a great idea!” Brianna exclaimed.  “Does the professor bring the snacks, or do you have to bring your own?”

“The professor brought the snacks the first week, then everyone had to sign up for one future class meeting to bring snacks to share.  My turn will be next week.”  I trailed off, then wondered out loud, “I wonder if there will be string cheese this week.”

“String cheese?”

“The second week of the quarter, the first time students brought snacks, someone brought string cheese.  It was such a huge hit with everyone that every class meeting since then, someone has brought string cheese.  It randomly became a tradition.”

“That’s so random!  I love it!  I wish I had a class where I got to snack on string cheese!”

I looked at my watch and noticed that it was time for me to leave for class.  I said, “I should get to class now.  I hope you and Chelsea figure out your living plans.”

“Thanks!  Have a great day!  I’ll see you Friday at JCF?”

“Yes!  If not sooner.”

“Of course!”  Brianna waved as I stood up; I waved back as I walked toward the exit.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the Quad.  I saw another familiar face, short with brown shoulder-length hair and blue eyes, walking toward me, toward the door I had just exited from.  “Chelsea!” I called out.

“Hey, Greg!” Chelsea replied, smiling and looking up.  “How are you?”

“I’m just headed to class, but I saw Brianna in there.  She’s waiting for you.”

“Oh, good!  We’re gonna talk about rooming together next year.”

“That’s what she told me.  That’ll be nice.  I’ll see you Friday?  At JCF?”

“Yeah!  I’ll probably be there.”

I continued walking across the grassy Quad, along a row of decades-old oak trees with branches soaring above me, stepping on the remains of acorns that had dropped months ago.  I enjoyed my conversation with Brianna.  She was cute, and friendly, and as far as I knew, for reasons I did not understand, she did not have a boyfriend.  At least there was no guy that was always around her, as far as I could tell.  She seemed like the kind of girl that would be popular with guys. I thought about hypothetical future conversations with her as I walked to class.


I finally walked into my front door around 6:20 that night, so full of crackers, cookies, and string cheese that I did not even bother making dinner.  Jed was sitting at the desk in the large bedroom that we shared.  As soon as I sat down and turned on my computer, he said, “Guess what happened at work today?”

“I was talking to Brianna today, and she said she went through your line. But I have a feeling this is something else.”

“Yes, something else. A guy reached into his pocket to pay.  He was trying to make exact change, and he apologized, because he thought he gave me a Canadian quarter.”  I nodded, knowing now where Jed was going with this.  “After I rang him up, I said, ‘Oh, by the way, that wasn’t a Canadian quarter.’  The guy goes, ‘Huh?’”  Jed reached over to the non-Canadian quarter, still sitting on his desk, and dramatically flipped it across the room to me. I carefully caught it in mid-air and looked at it.

The United States Mint made some changes to the design of the quarter-dollar coin for 1999, and Jed and I were talking about this a few weeks ago.  Every year from 1999 through 2008, the design on the back of the quarter would change every ten to eleven weeks, with a total of fifty different designs being minted in the upcoming ten-year span.  These fifty different designs would represent the fifty states of the United States.  I looked at the shiny, unscratched 1999 quarter that Jed had just flipped to me.  The front had the same bust of George Washington that I had seen on quarters all my life, but some of the mottos and printing normally on the back of the coin had been moved to the front, and the date of minting was missing from the front.  The back of the quarter said “Delaware 1787” at the top, with the date of minting, “1999,” at the bottom.  The inscription “Caesar Rodney” appeared on the back, next to a figure of a man, presumably whoever this Mr. Rodney was, riding a horse.  Above the horse’s hindquarters was the inscription “The First State.” Since Delaware was the first state to ratify the 1787 Constitution, the same Constitution still used today, Delaware’s quarter design was the first one minted, with the other twelve original states to follow in the order that they ratified the Constitution, and the rest following in the order that they were admitted to the Union. Canada’s quarter was the same size as a United States quarter, with a caribou on the back, so it was understandable that Jed’s customer, unaware of the recent changes in United States coinage, might have mistaken Caesar Rodney’s horse for the Canadian caribou.

“Nice,” I said after admiring it for a minute.  I flipped the quarter back to him.

“And we’re gonna get forty-nine other cool designs over the next ten years.”

“I know!”

“Who was Caesar Rodney?  Do you know?”

“I’ll look it up.  I was going to dial up to check my email.”  I connected my computer to the dial-up Internet, but instead of going directly to my email, I opened a Web browser and went to the website for the U.S. Mint, the government agency responsible for coins.  I clicked on the link for “50 State Quarters” and scrolled down to read about the designs.  “Looks like he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence,” I said.  “He made a long ride on horseback from Delaware to Independence Hall in Philadelphia just in time to vote in favor of the declaration.”

“That explains the horse,” Jed remarked.

“Yes.  Hopefully I’ll get one soon.  I’ll start paying for everything in cash so I get change back.  I don’t see change every day at work, like you do.”

“You’ll find one soon.  And if I start getting a bunch of them, I’ll save one for you.”

“Thanks!”


A few months later, I was browsing at the now-defunct Borders Books, the one that had been so controversial when it was first planned.  I found the same series of blue cardboard coin collecting folders that I had used as a child, with slots to save one coin from each date and mint mark.  The publisher of these had made a new one this year for the state quarters; I bought it that day.  By then, I had saved several of my own Delaware quarters, as well as a couple of Pennsylvania quarters.

I graduated from the University of Jeromeville last June, and many of my friends from my year who also graduated had moved away.  But I was in the unusual situation that, last year, as a senior, I made a lot of friends with freshmen.  That was how I knew Jed, and also how I knew Brianna and Chelsea.  A large group of freshmen got involved with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship that year, and most of them would be in Jeromeville until at least 2001.  So if I did end up getting a job within commuting distance from Jeromeville, I would still have some sense of a group of friends here in Jeromeville for another few years.  And I was involved enough at church that, at the time, I thought I would have been perfectly content to stay in Jeromeville forever.  Of course, life never seemed to work out exactly how I expected, but those are stories for another time.

Readers: Do you collect anything? Tell me about it in the comments.

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January 6, 1999. Low expectations, and hiding in plain sight. (#203)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 6 Comments

The hills looked unusually beautiful this morning, I thought as the gas stations and fast food restaurants on the eastern outskirts of Nueces approached.  The sun was just rising, and although this was my third day back at Nueces High School for student teaching after winter break, the first two days had been cloudy.

I had just driven through those hills five days ago.  Brian Burr, my older roommate from two years ago, was long known for throwing great parties. For many years, he had given a party for the New Year back at his parents’ house in Valle Luna.  He was now a student at New York Medical College, but as he had last year, he returned home for the winter break and threw another party.  I did not enjoy this one as much as the previous year.  Not as many of Brian’s friends from Jeromeville, the ones I knew, were there.  Brian spent most of his time catching up with people he had grown up with in Valle Luna, and now that he was twenty-five years old, many of his friends had entered the real adult world and did not have much in common with a student like me.

I brought a sleeping bag, the same one I got for the Moonlight Cove trip a few years ago, and stayed the night on the floor of the Burrs’ living room, along with about ten of Brian’s other friends who were not local to Valle Luna.  Being a light sleeper, I woke up earlier than the other guests, and since I anticipated this, I brought a book to read: The Regulators by Richard Bachman, who was actually Stephen King.  Early in his career, Stephen King had written books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, and when the media discovered that the Richard Bachman books were actually written by Stephen King, he staged a mock funeral for his alter ego.  A decade or so later, he wrote two books set in parallel universes with connections between the stories; one was published under his real name, and the other as Richard Bachman. The introduction to the book called it a posthumous work supposedly found among Mr. Bachman’s things by the nonexistent man’s nonexistent widow.  Reading kept me busy for about an hour until Brian woke up.  I left after telling Brian good morning and thanking him for inviting me.

It was around this time of morning on that day, January 1, with the sun just rising, as I left Brian’s house.  I was flipping around on the radio on the way home, looking for a good station, and a few minutes after I left Brian’s house, I heard the song “1999” by Prince.  The song was from 1983, but being that it now actually was 1999, I had a feeling I would be hearing this song many times over the next few days.  I heard it twice more on other stations before I got to Jeromeville that morning.

Now, five days later, I was almost halfway through the school year, and in my student teaching assignment, I had transitioned to a role as the primary teacher in both of my classes.  Basic Math B was doing a lesson on arithmetic and geometric sequences; as was usually the case in that class, the students who paid attention and did their work regularly seemed to understand, and the ones who did not pay attention struggled and did not care.

The other class was called Geometry, but the curriculum that Nueces High used took a more integrated approach.  Some geometry topics were introduced in the previous year’s Algebra 1 class, and some algebra topics were explored this year, particularly those that connect algebra with geometry.  Dr. George Samuels, one of my professors from the University of Jeromeville, was a co-author of this textbook.  The geometry class was learning about lines in slope-intercept form, and Kayla Welch had raised her hand to ask a question about a problem on the homework.  “Write an equation for the graph, then use the equation to find the cost of renting the bicycle for 4.5 hours,” she read.

I talked Kayla through finding the slope and y-intercept of the line on the graph; she correctly deduced that renting the bicycle cost a $12 fee, plus $8 per hour. I continued, “Now we put 4.5 hours into the equation to find the cost.”  I wrote the equation that Kayla had figured out on the board using function notation, f(x) = 8x + 12. “So what do I do to find f of 4.5?” I asked.

“Wait.  What is f?”

“That’s the equation of my function.  F of x equals 8x plus 12.”

“But where did you get f times x?”

“That doesn’t say f times x.  That’s function notation.”

Another student, Andy Rawlings, raised his hand.  “What’s a function?” he asked, confused.

Suddenly, a clear but disturbing picture of the reason for these students’ confusion began to emerge.  “You’ve never seen function notation?” I asked, pointing at the symbol “f(x).”

“No,” several of them replied.

I shook my head in frustration.  “I’m going to have a talk with Dr. Samuels,” I said angrily.

This comment lost them even further; I could tell by the looks on their faces and some confused noises that none of the students had any idea what I was talking about,  Apparently, not only had they not learned about function notation in Algebra I, like I had, but they also forgot that I knew one of the authors of their textbook.  I had told them once that I knew Dr. Samuels before, hoping that they would be impressed, but they apparently were not.  “Never mind,” I continued.  “Let’s start over from here.” I rewrote the equation without the function symbol, “y = 8x + 12,” and asked, “Does this make sense to you?”  The students who usually participated in class nodded and answered in the affirmative.

The rest of the period went on as normal.  After the bell rang, Mrs. Tracy motioned for me to come to her desk.  “They don’t see functions until next year, in Algebra II,” she said.

“I learned function notation in Algebra I,” I replied, genuinely confused.

“You were probably in all the honors classes.  These kids aren’t like you.  We just need to get them through this class so they can graduate from high school.  Most of these kids aren’t going to go to college, and if they do, it’ll probably just be Fairview Community College.  Maybe one of them will go on to a school like Jeromeville.  They aren’t ready for advanced topics like function notation.”

I just nodded, not sure what to say.  “Mmm-hmm,” I eventually replied.

“Just keep things simple.  Get them through your class.”

“I guess.”

“It’s not a bad thing.  You’re doing well so far overall.  Just think about that.”

“I will,” I said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.  See you then.”


This conversation was still on my mind that night when I showed up to The Edge, the junior high school age youth group at Jeromeville Covenant Church.  We always began the night with a short leader meeting.  The leaders sat in a circle on the floor of the fellowship hall, waiting for Faith Wiener, the intern in charge of junior high ministry whose name was probably amusing to some of the junior high school boys, to start the meeting.

We had quite a bit of turnover in our staff this year.  Adam White, the youth pastor, was still there.  Taylor Santiago, Brody Parker, Martin Rhodes, and Erica Foster were still on The Edge staff.  Hannah Gifford, the girl whom I had personally invited to join The Edge staff last year, had signed on for a second year. Noah Snyder, who held Faith’s position last year, was still on The Edge staff, but just as a volunteer.  Noah, like me, was studying to be a teacher, but for elementary school, and he was doing his student teaching through the other university in this region, Capital State.  Since he needed to focus on his teaching this year, he stepped down from the part-time paid position.  Five others from last year had left The Edge staff for other ministry opportunities. Josh and Abby McGraw had moved on to work with the high school group this year, as had Barefoot James.  Courtney Kohl and Cambria Hawley had both left The Edge to be Bible study leaders with JCF; I was in Courtney’s Bible study.

Since the start of the new year, one new leader, a freshman named Jonathan, had joined the staff of The Edge.  He showed up one Wednesday in October wanting to work with kids, after having been to J-Cov on a few Sunday mornings.  Jonathan’s heart seemed to be in the right place, although he did not act like the typical church kid.  Something about him rubbed me the wrong way.  And tonight there was someone else sitting in on our leader meeting, a taller than average, slim girl with dark brown hair that contrasted with her pale skin and blue eyes.  I knew this girl from JCF, although I had no idea that she would be here tonight.  She looked up and recognized me, so I said, “Hi, Jamie.  Are you going to work with The Edge?”

“Yeah!” she said.  “I’m going to check it out.  I was just thinking about what else I could get involved with at church.”

“Welcome!  It’s good to see you here!”

A few minutes later, when everyone had arrived, Faith called our meeting to order.  “We have a new leader tonight,” she said in her North Carolina drawl.  “This is Jamie.  Apparently you know Greg.”

“Yeah,” Jamie replied.  “From JCF.  And I know Hannah from JCF too.”

“Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, and why you came to work with The Edge.”

“Well, I’m a freshman.  I’m from Ashwood.  I haven’t decided on a major yet for sure, but I’m thinking psychology or something like that.  And I’m looking at The Edge because I used to work with kids at my church back home, and I want to get back into that.”

“Sounds good!  Welcome!”

We went over the order of events for the night, starting with the game we would be playing.  “We’re gonna be doing the leader hunt tonight,” Faith explained.

“I love this one,” Martin said.

“Five of you will be hiding somewhere on the church property, and the kids will be looking for you.  You’ll each have a pen, and the students will have a card, and you’ll initial their card when they find you.  They’ll have five minutes to find as many of you as you can.  I’m thinking Jamie probably shouldn’t be one of the leaders hiding, since the kids don’t know you.”

“Good idea,” Jamie replied.  “That’s fair.”

“The bushes in the back behind the parking lot are always a good place to hide,” Adam explained.  “And I know Martin once hid in the church van and left it unlocked.  Are you gonna do that again?”

“I think so,” Martin replied.

“In a few minutes, when we’re done talking but before the kids show up, you can look around for good hiding places if you need to.  Plus, it’s dark, so it’s easier to stay out of sight.”

During the rest of the meeting, I thought about the layout of the church grounds, trying to think of a good hiding spot.  I had not investigated the bushes behind the parking lot well enough to know if that would work for me.  After the meeting, I walked around outside, looking to see what might offer a reasonable amount of concealment, and I suddenly got an idea for a somewhat nontraditional way of hiding.

The students began to trickle in. I overheard a girl wearing a shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch admiringly pointing out that Jonathan was also wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch shirt. “Yeah, I like their clothes,” he said. “They’re kind of expensive, but that’s my style. I can’t help what I like. And people complain about how they use sweatshops, but I just like to think I’m giving some Third World kid a job.”

Calm down, Jonathan, I thought. No one cares about your style that much. And do 13-year-old kids really think about Third World sweatshops? I walked to the other side of the room and watched some boys playing basketball on the small-sized basketball hoop and backboard attached to the wall.

After the students had arrived, Adam called them all to attention.  “Tonight, we’re going to be playing the Leader Hunt game.  If you’re hiding, stand up.”  Faith, Hannah, Martin, Taylor, and I all stood up.  “These five leaders will be hiding somewhere on the church grounds, and you have to find them.  While they’re hiding, the rest of us will read you the announcements.”

I walked outside with the others who were hiding.  “Where are you hiding?” Faith asked when we were far enough away from the building for students not to hear.

“I was thinking, I’ll just hide in plain sight,” I explained.  “I’m going to sit on the bench at that bus stop over there, looking in the opposite direction, and act like I’m waiting for the bus.”

“That’s a great idea!  Do you think it’ll trick anyone?”

“Probably not many, but it’s funny.  Unexpected.”

I walked to the bus stop as Faith went to find a hiding place in the other direction.  I was not even sure if the buses ran at this time of night.  The local buses in Jeromeville were jointly run by the city government and the student association, with schedules meant to accommodate university students traveling to campus.  Another bus agency, called Arroyobus, ran local routes in the two other cities in Arroyo Verde County, as well as commuter buses between those two cities and other cities nearby. The Arroyobus route connecting Jeromeville and Woodville also stopped at this bus stop.  I knew nothing of the Arroyobus schedule, but I assumed that a bunch of youth group kids in their early teens also knew little about bus schedules, so they not be suspicious of seeing someone waiting for a bus at 7:30 at night. This would not affect the legitimacy of my hiding place.

Jeromeville was relatively quiet at night.  Most of the noise I heard was just from traffic passing by on Andrews Road.  Andrews was a fairly busy street, and across the street a little to my left was a large shopping center anchored by a grocery store. Just on the other side of the shopping center was Coventry Boulevard, the major east-west thoroughfare in the northern parts of Jeromeville.  This time of year, it was already dark by the time The Edge began, but the church grounds were illuminated by lampposts, and there was a streetlight not far from me, so with all of that, plus the non-hiding leaders keeping watch, it was safe for these students to run around the church property at night looking for leaders.

I heard voices as the students left the fellowship hall to start looking for us, but it sounded like most of them were headed in the opposite direction from me, toward the parking lot in the back.  I looked to my right, south on Andrews Road away from the church property, then I turned and looked to my left, slightly more visible.  I did not see any students coming, but I did see two young men on bicycles wearing white dress shirts, ties, and name tags.  Jeromeville was one of the most bicycle-friendly places in the United States, so seeing people riding bicycles at night was not at all uncommon here, but these two were too well-dressed to be students.  This could only mean one thing, which was confirmed when the two of them approached me and one of them asked, “Excuse me, sir?  We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions while you’re waiting here for the bus.”  He was now close enough that I could read his name tag: ELDER SIMMONS, THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.  The words “Jesus Christ” were larger than the other words, just as they were on signs at their churches and logos on their promotional materials.

I had mixed feelings about Mormons and the Latter-Day Saints church.  They all seemed like nice people who favored traditional family values.  But from what I knew, they believed in additional Scriptures besides the traditional Old and New Testaments, and much of what I had learned about the Bible in the last few years seemed to suggest that there was no true Word of God beyond the Old and New Testaments.  I had Mormon cousins, because my grandpa on the Dennison side divorced Dad’s biological mother when Dad was a child and married into an LDS family.  I had only met those relatives a few times, but I always got along with them.  I had Mormon friends in high school, including Jason Lambert, who was in a lot of classes with me.  Jason and I once had an extremely liberal history teacher who we used to like to argue with.  More specifically, Jason liked to start the argument, because Jason was a lot more confrontational than me, and a bit cocky as well.  Jason was a great guy, but he rubbed me the wrong way sometimes.  Kind of like how Jonathan rubbed me the wrong way, with his Abercrombie & Fitch shirt and giving kids jobs in sweatshops. Maybe I should tell Elder Simmons to go get Jonathan to join the LDS church.

“Oh, sorry,” I said to Elder Simmons, realizing that my mind had been wandering for a few seconds, and that I had never replied to him.  “Actually, I’m not waiting for the bus.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.  I’m hiding from a bunch of kids.  I’m a youth group leader, at this church.”  I subtly emphasized those last two words as I motioned toward the buildings of Jeromeville Covenant Church behind me.  My experience had been that LDS missionaries tend to seek people from outside the church entirely, and they leave me alone when they find out that I attend a church.

“That sounds like fun,” Elder Simmons replied.  As he said that, a girl named Katie Hunter, from a family very active in the church, walked up to me with two of her friends.  They all handed me index cards.

“I found you, Greg,” she said.  “Sign this.”

“I see how the game works now,” Elder Simmons observed aloud.

After I signed the cards, the girls ran off to look for other leaders.  “I’ve been working with this group for about two years now,” I explained.  “One Sunday, that girl’s older brother came up to me out of nowhere and asked me if I would take him and his friend to McDonald’s.  We hung out all afternoon, and my friend heard about it and said I should be a youth group leader.”

“That’s a great story.”  A few other kids came up to me with their cards, and after I signed them, Elder Simmons continued, “I’ll let you get back to your game, then.  Here’s my card; you can let me know if you have any questions about our church.  Or you can come visit us; we’re on Eighth Street, down here and then turn left.” He handed me a card with his contact information on it.

“Okay,” I replied, with no intention of actually contacting him but wanting to be polite.  “Thank you.”

“Have a great night!” the other LDS missionary said.  They continued down the road on their bikes.


At the end of the night, some of the leaders talked about how the Leader Hunt game went.  Most of the students eventually found me at the bus stop.  The majority of them missed Martin in the church van.  I told Martin and Taylor about the LDS missionaries, and they thought that was funny.

That night, as I tried to sleep, I said a prayer for Elder Simmons and his friend.  I thanked God that they had some knowledge of Scripture and the truth.  I prayed that God would reveal the full truth to them, and that they would know Jesus Christ personally.  Only God knew for sure whether Elder Simmons and his friend were true believers in their hearts; it was not my place to judge.

My mind kept drifting again to earlier that morning, to what Mrs. Tracy had said about her students at Nueces High.  She did have a point.  I had a lot of classes in high school that were mostly honor students, and I had spent the last four and a half years taking classes at a relatively prestigious university, where virtually all of the students had been honor students in high school.  I was not used to students who were not in advanced classes, and I did have to remember that not all of my students would be going on to college.

The way I saw it, though, that was no excuse for low expectations.  Even if not all students were college bound, all students should at least know about the options for their future, so that they can be in control of their futures as much as possible.  The best teachers should be approaching their classes from the point of view that everyone can succeed, and I hoped that I would never have such a negative view of my students’ collective future as Mrs. Tracy had that day.  And I genuinely did believe that function notation was an Algebra I topic, which Geometry students would have seen before, because that was how it was in my own schooling.

The new year was almost a week old at this point.  I was really hoping for a good year.  For the most part, 1997 and 1998 had not been bad, but each one had had a few major letdowns.  I was not expecting 1999 to be perfect, by any means, but I was hoping that my life would continue on an upward trajectory.  This whole training to be a teacher thing was giving more clear meaning to my life, and if all went according to plan, by the end of the year I would be a paid full-time teacher with a classroom of my own, full of fun teenagers who called me Mr. Dennison.  Maybe then I would finally feel grown up.

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December 4-7, 1998.  My first conference for teachers. (#201)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 3 Comments

“Are you doing anything this weekend?” Mrs. Tracy asked me, as I packed up my things after my period student teaching in her classroom ended.

“The Shorehaven conference,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s right!  That’s this weekend!  I haven’t been to that in a few years.  Is this your first time, as a new student teacher?”

“Yeah!  I’m kind of excited!”

“Have you been to the Shorehaven conference grounds before?  Didn’t you grow up around there?”

“Yes.  Plumdale is about thirty miles away from Ocean Grove.  I’ve been to Ocean Grove many times, but not actually on the conference grounds.”

“It’s beautiful!  You’ll love it!”

“That’s good.”

“Have a great weekend!  I’ll see you Monday!” Mrs. Tracy said.

“You too!”


A couple months ago, in our student teaching seminar, Dr. Van Zandt told us about an annual conference bringing together hundreds of mathematics teachers from all over the northern half of the state.  He encouraged us to attend, even though the event was at Shorehaven Conference Grounds in Ocean Grove, a three hour drive from Jeromeville each way.  We would have to pay our own expenses, but since my parents lived just thirty miles away, I could stay with them and avoid the cost of either a room at the conference grounds or an overpriced touristy hotel room in or near Ocean Grove.

The schedule included a keynote address on a Friday night, breakout sessions and vendor booths all day Saturday, and two large group speeches on Sunday morning.  Some of the breakout sessions included materials given out to attendees; I had to choose two of these in advance, because of the limited supply of materials.  After I sent my registration form and fees, I received my name badge and tickets to the two ticketed sessions in the mail.

The Shorehaven conference, officially the “Western Mathematics Council Education Conference – North, Shorehaven,” was held annually on the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I had no education classes on Friday afternoons, so after I came home from student teaching on that Friday morning, I spent the rest of the afternoon packing.  I only needed two changes of clothes, but I packed an extra change of clothes as I always did.

I left Jeromeville around two o’clock and took the slightly longer route home down the Valley.  On a Friday afternoon, the more direct route through Los Nogales and San Tomas would lead me directly into the middle of massive traffic snarls.  I arrived at my parents’ house around five; Mom said she would have dinner ready for me.  She made chicken and mashed potatoes.  Since this was a work trip, I made sure Mom knew that I only had an hour at most before I had to leave for the conference.

The drive had been cold and gloomy.  The gray December sky that had been above me so far on this trip had turned completely dark by the time I left my parents’ house, except for a faint glow in the east where the moon was rising behind the clouds.  I drove south on Highway 11 and turned at the south end of Plumdale onto Highway 127 west.  Five miles down the road, in Carsonville, Highway 127 merged with Highway 2 south and ran parallel to the coast.  Carsonville was near the mouth of the Gabilan River and its fertile surrounding valley, so here the highway ran a few miles inland, surrounded by farmland.  I drove over a few low hills across the cities of Marine Beach, Seaview, and Santa Lucia, then exited on Highway 86 west toward Ocean Grove.

This stretch of Highway 86 was a twisting two-lane road that climbed a thickly forested hill, but since it was dark, I would have to wait until morning to enjoy the view.  After a few miles, the road widened and became Cypress Avenue.  When I saw Cypress Middle School at the corner with Sycamore Avenue, I turned onto a side street and looked for a place to park on the side of the street, finding one about a block past the school.

The conference was so large that it took up three locations within about a mile and a half of each other: the actual conference grounds on the beach, this school near the top of a hill, and Ocean Grove High School in between.  The Friday keynote address was at the middle school, the two Sunday talks were at the conference grounds, and the Saturday breakout sessions and vendor tables were at all three locations, with the local school district donating its buses to be used as shuttle buses between the three sites..

Cypress Middle School was an old building, probably from the early twentieth century.  To my knowledge, middle schools were a newer concept around here; this building looked like something from the era of when only elementary and high schools existed.  I wondered if this school might have originally been an elementary or high school. I walked inside, where two people sat at a table with boxes full of tote bags.  “Hi,” one of them said.  “Do you have your name badge?”

“Yes,” I replied, handing it to her.  She looked through a very long list, found my name, and handed me a tote bag.

“Enjoy!” she said.

Apparently I got a free tote bag for attending this event.  I was not expecting that.  The bag was black, with a yellow logo printed on it, some kind of repeating fractal design with spirals.  Above it was printed the slogan “Mathematics Is Beautiful,” and below it, “Western Mathematics Council 1998.”

I carried the tote bag as I followed signs to the theater.  Cypress Middle School was a two-story building, with a strange layout; in order to reach the theater, I had to climb to the second floor, go around a corner, and then go back down a different set of stairs.  The theater was large, with probably around a thousand seats, not typical of any theater found in any middle school I had seen before.  I was almost certain now that this building had once been the local high school.

When I arrived, the theater was only around a quarter full, and I did not see anyone I recognized.  I took a seat and looked through my tote bag to see what was inside.  An updated catalog of courses, including last minute changes and corrections.  A note pad, with the conference logo and dates of upcoming conferences from this year through 2002.  A lanyard and plastic sleeve in which to put my name badge.  A pencil and pen.

The speaker was a curriculum director for some school district in the suburbs of Bay City.  He was talking about the importance of cultural diversity and how students from different cultures respond to various scenarios in school.  I tuned out about halfway through, because I had heard a lot of this in one of my education classes, and this was a hot-button issue in those days that I did not completely agree with.  Every student is different, yes, and as a teacher I should be familiar with my students enough to recognize that some will react differently to school settings than others.  But assuming that students will be a certain way because of their cultures, or the colors of their skin, to me seemed like just racial stereotyping all over again.


In those days, when I slept at my parents’ house, I was usually on a school break, so it was a little difficult to wake up at 6:00 to get ready.  I wanted to lie in bed for a while Saturday morning, but I had to get up and get dressed, because I had a ticket for an 8:00 session.

Highway 86 was much more beautiful in the light of the rising sun, with views of the ocean from the summit of the hill.  I parked near where I had parked the day before at Cypress Middle School and walked to my session.  It was about algebra tiles, small plastic blocks used to model simplifying, factoring, and expanding algebraic expressions.  This session came with a free sample of three-dimensional algebra tiles, which could be used to model expressions with exponents up to the third power, whereas traditional flat tiles could only be used for the second power.  I could see where this would be a useful manipulative, but it seemed like it would take a long time to teach students how to use them, long enough that I was not sure it would be useful.

I had an hour and a half until my next session, so next I walked around the vendors in the school cafeteria.  I took lots of business cards, pamphlets, and free samples of pens and pencils as sales professionals tried to convince me to buy calculators, classroom manipulatives, and computer software.  As a student teacher, I was not in a position to make a large purchase, but I was interested in knowing what was out there.  I spent money once that day, and it happened when I turned a corner and saw a booth selling mathematics-related t-shirts.  I knew I had to get something.

“Do you have the quadratic formula shirt in an extra large?” I asked, pointing to the shirt in question. “I’m teaching that right now, actually.”

“Let me look,” the man behind the table said.  He looked through a box and pulled out a shirt in my size.  “We only have it in green.  Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I said.  I paid him and put the t-shirt in my tote bag.

After I finished walking around the vendor tables, I left the cafeteria through the back door, which opened right onto a street running behind the school.  I got on the next school bus to arrive and rode through the neighborhoods of Ocean Grove, a little over a mile down a gently sloping hill, to the main conference grounds.

I had never seen the Shorehaven Conference Center up close, and it was absolutely beautiful.  About twenty-five old wooden buildings, many with stone chimneys, were scattered among coastal cypress and live oak trees, with the beach just beyond a row of dunes at the west end of the conference center.  The north side of the grounds held dormitories, with exhibition halls and meeting rooms on the south side.  I found the room for the next session on my schedule, where I sat listening to a veteran teacher speak on creative ways to keep students engaged in learning.  I wondered if any of that would work for the difficult students I had in Mrs. Matthews’ Basic Math B class.

Next, I climbed a hill to a large exhibition hall, an imposing wooden structure with a stone façade in front and tall paned windows.  The catalog said that there were more vendors in here, but a quick look around showed me that these vendors were mostly textbook publishers.

“Are you adopting?” one saleswoman asked me as I approached her table.

“Huh?” I asked instinctively.  Adopting?  Like adopting a baby?  That did not make sense in this context.  I was not sure what she was asking.

“Is your school adopting this year?” she repeated.

I still was not sure what she was talking about, so I said, “No.  I’m just looking.”

“Can I tell you about our program, so you’ll remember us in your next adoption year?”

“Sure,” I said.

As she began to explain the features of the textbook that she was selling, I inferred from the context that “adopting” is educational bureaucrat jargon for selecting and buying new textbooks and curriculum.  As I flipped through one of her books, she explained that this was an integrated curriculum.  “So, instead of having algebra one year and geography another year, you get it all combined.  We don’t have a geography book, but if you do our three-year core high school curriculum, you get all the material for a year of geography.”

I nodded, more confused than ever.  This was math, not social studies.  Why would there be geography in this textbook?  Was this curriculum so integrated that these textbooks taught math and social studies? I did not see any maps in the book I was flipping through, just math.  “So can I sign you up for anything?” she asked

“I’m not ready to get anything now.”

“That’s okay.  Here’s my card.  Contact me when your school is adopting.”

“Thank you.  I will.”

“Enjoy the weekend!”

“Thanks!” I said.  As I walked around the room, about two minutes later it occurred to me that all of her talk about geography was actually about geometry.  I reached into my tote bag, found her business card, and threw it away; no student needs to learn from a textbook published by a company whose sales representatives do not know the difference between geometry and geography.

I finished walking around the publishers’ exhibits shortly before noon.  I had a session at 1:00 back at Cypress Middle School, and I was picking up a box lunch at the school.  But instead of waiting for the next shuttle bus, I decided to walk.  I followed the same route I had taken on the bus, walking out the main entrance, across Shorehaven Avenue, and straight down Sycamore Avenue to the school.

Ocean Grove is a great town to take a walk.  The neighborhoods closest to the beach have no sidewalks and curbs, just beautifully kept up old houses among large cypress, pine, and live oak trees, some covered with Spanish moss.  I saw squirrels climbing trees and birds flying by.

The walk to the school was a little over a mile.  About a third of the way there, a curb appeared on the side of the street, and parts of the street now had a paved sidewalk as well. This neighborhood looked more like a typical well-kept older suburban area, the trees not quite as dense or tall.  The overcast December sky that had hung over my trip home yesterday had given way to a beautiful blue, cool and breezy but sunny with no clouds in sight.  This part of Sycamore Avenue ran along the top of a ridge, and a few times during my walk, while crossing a street, I could look to my left down the cross street and see the dark blue ocean far off below me, with the faint hazy outline of the Lorenzo Mountains even farther away across the Santa Lucia Bay.

When I arrived at the school and walked to the table where the lunches were being distributed, I saw Ron Pinkerton, Melissa Becker, and Ryan Gaines from my student teaching program sitting at a picnic table.  I sat with them after I got my lunch.  “How’s your day been?” Ron asked.

“Good so far,” I said.  “I have a session here at 1 about teaching fractions.  The Basic Math B class is doing things with fractions right now, and a lot of them don’t get it at all.  Then back to the grounds to hear Howard Jacobsen at 4. He wrote the textbook that Ryan and I use for Basic B at Nueces High, and I also used one of his textbooks in high school.”

“Howard Jacobsen will be good,” Ryan said.  “I’m not gonna make it, though.”

“We’re gonna go check out the vendors inside,” Melissa said a few minutes later after she and the others finished their lunch.  “Have you been in there yet?”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “I got a quadratic formula t-shirt.”

“Nice!  I’m going to Howard Jacobsen, so I’ll see you there?”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Have fun in there.”

After the session about fractions, I now had some new ideas on how to make the students visualize what fractions really meant.  Now I had to take another shuttle bus back to the grounds.  The walk was pleasant, but I did not particularly want to walk that far a second time today.  When I arrived at the grounds, I walked toward the beach and found a nice big rock to sit on.  I closed my eyes for a bit, but I was not positioned comfortably enough to fall asleep, even with the soothing low roar of waves breaking as background noise.

As the time for Howard Jacobsen’s talk drew near, I started walking in that direction.  The room was mostly full when I arrived, just in time, but I saw Melissa, and she had saved me a seat next to her.  “Thanks,” I whispered to her.

Mr. Jacobsen did not look much like I imagined.  I recognized him from the “About the Author” page in the Basic B textbook, but he was older now.  He was shorter than average for a man, and his head, with slightly bushy gray hair and a mustache, looked too big for his well-dressed body.  But once he began speaking, I was instantly fascinated.  “Every year,” he explained, “I keep an eye out for stories in the news that I can use in my classroom.  Here are some of my favorites for this year.”

Mr. Jacobsen showed a photo on the projector of a drawing of a normal human, with marks showing his height at six feet, then next to him a drawing of a giant baby, also six feet tall.  “Babies do not look like miniature humans,” he explained.  “Their different body parts grow at different rates.  So if you scale a baby up to six feet tall, it looks different from an adult man.  I used this illustration last year when I was teaching proportions.”

Next, Mr. Jacobsen put a photograph on the projector of a man dressed like Elvis Presley jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, and a table showing the number of professional Elvis impersonators in various years.  “So this article was talking about the rapid growth in the number of Elvis impersonators since the time of Elvis’ death.  You could easily tie this into a lesson about exponential growth.”  He next showed a page of equations on the projector and added, “Here we calculate that, if the growth rates continue, by the middle of the twenty-first century, every human being on Earth will be an Elvis impersonator.”  Many people in the audience laughed, including me.

After an hour of such examples, when the talk ended, I said goodbye to Melissa, who was headed to dinner with some of the others from our class.  She invited me, but I had plans to have dinner with my parents.  After Melissa left, before I went home, I walked up to Mr. Jacobsen at the front of the room and nervously said, “Mr. Jacobsen?”

“Yes?” he replied, turning around.

“Hi.  I don’t know you.  My name is Greg Dennison, I’m a student teacher from Jeromeville, and one of the classes I’m student teaching is using your Survey of Mathematics textbook.  And I used your geometry textbook myself eight years ago when I was in high school.  I just wanted to say I love your textbook writing style.”

“Thank you!” Mr. Jacobsen replied, sounding genuinely pleased.

“I love the way you creatively work in so many other topics and find ways to connect them to math.  Just like what you were talking about today.  It’s very unique, and that’s why your textbook stood out to me all these years.”

“Thank you so much.  That’s what I try to do.  It was nice meeting you, Greg.”

“You too.  I’ll probably see you next year if you’re here again.”

“I should be!” he exclaimed.  “I look forward to it!”


I skipped the Sunday morning sessions and got back to Jeromeville around lunch time on Sunday, as I had planned.  I had some reading to do for my classes.

Dr. Van Zandt was at Nueces High School on Monday, to record his student teachers there and make observations.  He observed me in Mrs. Tracy’s class third period, but he did not know that I had a little surprise planned for the class.

I wrote “ax2 + bx + c = 0,” the general form of a quadratic equation, on the board.  “The first problem for today is going to walk you through how to get x by itself, to solve this equation,” I said.  “Work on that in your groups, fill in the blanks, then we’ll talk about it together.” I walked around, helping students get unstuck as Dr. Van Zandt pointed a video camera at me and took notes.  After most of the responsible students had successfully gotten x alone by completing the square, thus deriving and proving the quadratic formula, I wrote the formula on the board.

“And I also brought a little study guide for you,” I said.  The students watched as I took off the sweater I was wearing, revealing my new green quadratic formula T-shirt underneath.  Dr. Van Zandt’s camera captured all of it, including the students’ reactions as they laughed and cheered.

“Where’d you get that, Mr. Dennison?” Andy Rawlings shouted out.

“I went to a conference this weekend.  They were selling math shirts.”

“I love it!”

I wore the quadratic formula shirt many times the rest of that year, and the students all seemed to react positively to it.  Once I wore it to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, and a younger university student saw it and said, “The quadratic formula!  I remember that from high school!”  His response puzzled me; as a mathematics major, the quadratic formula was not something to be remembered in the distant past and forgotten, but something fundamental to the way the universe worked.  I supposed that many people did not see it that way, though.

I went to the Shorehaven conference a total of twelve times from 1998 through 2014.  I  made the walk from the conference grounds to Cypress Middle School at some point every time I went, because that was such a beautiful, peaceful place to take a walk, with all the trees surrounding the conference grounds, and the waves breaking on the adjacent beach.  I have not been in over a decade at this point; the other mathematics teachers at my current place of employment usually do not go, and the school district only sends instructional coaches to that conference.  I did go to the adjacent beach once since then, in 2024 while driving around with my mother on a visit home.  I may return to the conference someday, though; I still have well over a decade ahead of me before retirement.

Readers: Is there an annual event, work- or school-related or otherwise, that you attend every year, or attended every year for a long time? Tell me about it in the comments.

If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.

October 2, 1998.  Fall quarter this year felt very different from usual. (#194)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 8 Comments

Decades before the Wordle game took the Internet by storm, the College Ready Mathematics curriculum had the Silent Number Game.  The two games worked similarly; in the Silent Number Game, students had to guess a two- or three-digit number, and the teacher would silently mark how many of the digits were correct and how many of the correct digits were in the correct position.  Both games were inspired by the board game Mastermind, which in turn was inspired by various pencil-and-paper folk games.  The CRM geometry textbook instructed teachers to play a few games with students over the course of a week, and some of the homework problems in the book asked questions based on this game.  By explaining what someone knows or does not know after a few turns, and why, students use thought processes useful for making mathematical proofs, a concept that is introduced soon after the Silent Number Game.

Mrs. Tracy, my master teacher in the geometry class, let me lead the class in a few rounds of the Silent Number Game.  The students were getting better at the game over the few days that we had been playing.  Mrs. Tracy walked to the front to take over and finish teaching the lesson; I took a deep breath, still feeling tense after what had happened earlier that day in the Basic Math B class.  At least no one in the geometry class cussed me out today.

After Mrs. Tracy finished, I walked around the room helping students with their work.  I happened to glance at Andy Rawlings’ paper as he wrote an answer to this problem:

Tara is playing the Silent Number Game.
923   1 correct, 1 in the right position
964   1 correct, 1 in the right position
945   2 correct, 0 in the right position

Tara thinks that the number must start with 9.  Explain how you know Tara is wrong, and find the correct number.

Andy had written, “Tara is dumb.”  I pointed at his answer and said, “Really?  That’s what you’re going with?”

“Come on, Mr. Dennison,” Andy replied.  “It even says she’s wrong.”

“Yes, but explain how you know.  Without calling her names.”

“Fine. Let me think about it.”  Andy erased his work as I moved on to the student behind him, Kayla Welch.  She had left the problem blank.  “Mr. Dennison?” Kayla asked.  “I don’t get this one.  I thought the number started with 9 too.”

“Let’s talk this out,” I replied.  “Why do you think it starts with 9?”

“Because the first two guesses started with 9, and she had one number correct and it was in the right position.  And the last one had two correct digits.”

“How many of the digits in 945 are in the right position?”

Kayla reread the problem.  “None of them,” she said, trailing off as she contemplated this information.  “But 9 has to be in the first position.”

“Let’s think about this.  If there is a 9 in the number, it has to be in the first position, because 923 had one digit correct and it was in the correct position.  But 9 can’t be in the first position because of what you said about 945.  What does that mean?”

Kayla thought about this, then said, “There isn’t a 9 in the number?”

“Right.  So which two digits of 945 are correct?”

“The 4 and the 5.”

“And, look at the other guesses.  Which digit is 4?”

“The last one.  Because 964 had one number in the right position.”

“So which of 923 is the correct digit?”

“Not the 9.  It’s the 2, because we already know the last digit is 4.  So the number is 524.”

“That’s what I got!  Good job!”

After the bell rang, Mrs. Tracy asked to talk to me for a minute.  “You did a good job of making Kayla think through that problem.”

“Thank you,” I said.  I sighed and added, “I don’t feel like I did a good job in Mrs. Matthews’ class this morning.  A girl cussed me out for telling her to get back to work.”

“That happens sometimes.  What did you do?”

“I looked over at Mrs. Matthews.  She gave me a Room Two form, and I filled it out,” I explained.  Everyone at Nueces High School knew that Room Two meant the room where students get sent out of class for misbehaving, and I learned this quickly during the week of teacher meetings at the start of the year.  “And I called her mom and left a message.”

“Then you did the right thing.  Don’t let it get to you.”

“I know.”

“Not every student is going to like you.”

“I know.  I’m learning that.”

“You did great today.  Don’t let it get to you.  Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll see you Monday.”

“Thanks.”


After I got home from student teaching, I made a sandwich, as I always did.  When I finished eating, I got on my bike and headed to campus.  Yesterday was the first day of classes for the University of Jeromeville’s fall quarter.  Classes started on a Thursday, as fall quarter always did, but fall quarter this year felt very different from usual.  For one thing, one of my classes for the student teaching program had already been meeting for a month.  Student teaching itself was an eight-unit class officially called Education 306A: Teaching Mathematics in Secondary Schools, consisting not only of the time I spent at Nueces High every morning but also an hour-long seminar every day.  The UJ academic year started later than that of public high schools in the area, but Ed 306A followed the public school schedules.  I had two other education classes this quarter that met on the university’s academic schedule.  One of them started yesterday, and the other would start on Monday.  Neither of these classes met on Fridays, so all I had today was the seminar.

The classroom was about half full when I arrived, but of course “half full” was a relative term, so this meant that eight students and Dr. Van Zandt were in the room when I arrived.  This class was exclusively for students in the mathematics teacher certification program.  There were seventeen of us in the program this year, and Dr. Van Zandt, who had been the professor for this program since 1990, said that it was the largest class of future math teachers he had ever had.

Today, Dr. Van Zandt asked if any of us had any experiences to share regarding difficult students.  I raised my hand.

“Yes, Greg?” Dr. Van Zandt said.

“Just today, I told two girls to get back to work because they were talking.  One of them looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I don’t effing have to do what you say.’  But she said the actual word.”

“What a little brat,” Ryan Gaines, another student teacher working at Nueces High, said.  Some of the others chuckled.

“And how did you handle that?” Dr. Van Zandt asked.

“Mrs. Matthews gave me the form to send the girl to Room Two.  That’s where misbehaving students get sent.  She took it and stormed off.”

“Then I think you did what you needed to.  Did you do any kind of follow-up after that?”

“I called her mom and left a message.  Mrs. Matthews said that was required.”

“She’s right.  According to State Ed Code, if you send a student out of class for the period, you have to contact the parents.  That’s called a class suspension.  And it’s always a good idea to make contact with the parents as soon as possible after any kind of discipline.  Thanks for sharing, Greg.”

I listened to others share stories of their own misbehaving students.  Although I handled it well this time, that kind of defiant behavior from students made me angry.  And although a conversation with the girl’s mother may be productive in the long run, I secretly hoped that she would not call back.  Talking to parents terrified me, mostly because I was barely twenty-two years old and did not expect to be taken seriously by parents of high school students who were probably twice my age.


For the last three years, the highlight of my Fridays had been the large group meeting of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  Again, I knew that this year would be different.  I was no longer an undergraduate, and for some reason I had yet to understand, there were very few graduate students attending JCF.  I only knew of one at the time, a guy named Andrew Bryant who was now in his second year of getting his Ph.D. in chemistry.  Of course, this might just be a consequence of the fact that most graduate programs are a lot of work, leaving students little time to be involved in campus activities outside of their program.  I did not see a need for my student teaching to take me away from my involvement at JCF, or from activities at church.  Being in the student teaching program, I was classified as a graduate student, but I was pretty sure that actual graduate students working toward master’s, doctoral, or professional degrees had a much greater workload than I did.

The most visibly obvious difference at JCF was the location.  Since I started attending JCF early in my second year, the large group meetings had been in Evans Hall, but this year they moved to Harding Hall.  The buildings were not far apart; Harding was on the corner of Davis Drive and Colt Avenue, diagonally across from Stone Hall, and Evans was just on the other side of Stone.  But psychologically, I always associated Evans with JCF.  I had never been inside Harding, so this would feel like unfamiliar territory.

Harding Hall, like many of the buildings on this part of campus, was an older building, dating to the 1940s.  The University of Jeromeville had a world-class School of Veterinary Medicine, one of the largest in the United States.  Harding Hall was the original location of the vet school, but many of the laboratories and the teaching hospital moved in the 1970s to a new location on the edge of campus, between Andrews Road and Highway 117.  The vet school still had offices and classrooms in Harding Hall, and the entrance of the building reflected its history; above the doors stood relief sculptures of various animals.

My housemate Jed was with me when we arrived.  “Have you had a class in here before?” I asked.

“No,” Jed replied.

“Me either.  I’m not sure exactly where the room is.”

I opened the door and walked into the lobby.  A large stairway led up, with hallways on either side..  A handwritten sign on poster board said “Jeromeville Christian Fellowship” with an arrow pointing up the stairs.  As I walked up the stairs, the soft din of voices that I heard upstairs gradually became louder.

“What’s up, G,” Todd Chevallier said from the table where he sat, handing out the weekly newsletter and writing name tags.  He wrote “G” on mine and stuck it on my shirt before I could object, then he handed Jed his name tag.

“‘G,’” I said.  “I guess I’ll be ‘G’ tonight.”

“It’s not a bad nickname,” Jed said.

“There are only two people who are allowed to call me ‘G,’” I explained

“Oh yeah?  Who?” Todd asked.

“When I was in high school, my friend Jessica always used to shorten everyone’s name.  Melissa became ‘Mel,’ Renee became ‘Nee,’ Kevin became ‘Kev.’  She called herself ‘Jess.’  I already went by a one-syllable name, so I became ‘G.’  And then later our other friend, Melissa, also started calling me ‘G’ sometimes, but not as often as Jessica.”

“That’s funny.”

“And now I guess I’ll have to tell people that story,” I said, patting my ‘G’ name tag with my hand.

The large lecture hall, room 2101 Harding Hall, held around three hundred students, larger than JCF’s previous location in 170 Evans.  The seats were steeply inclined, such that the entrance to the room, in the back of the seating area, was on the second floor, but the front of the room was level with the first floor.  The room was not very full yet.  Jed and I sat on the left aisle about halfway toward the front.  I skimmed through the newsletter, then watched the room gradually fill up.

I had been part of this group for long enough that I knew many of these people.  But I could not help but notice the absence of those people who had graduated last year and left Jeromeville.  Ramon Quintero, Sarah Winters, Krista Curtis, Xander Mackey, Raphael Stevens, Scott and Amelia Madison, Joe Fox, Alyssa Kramer, Evan Lundgren, and Haley Channing were all gone, among others.  There were some students from my year who had graduated but stayed in Jeromeville, as well as some from my year who had not finished their degrees; I said hi to one of those, Mike Knepper, as he took a seat down the row from Jed and me.

Brent Wang was a senior this year; he played keyboard and was this year’s worship team leader.  He led the group in a song.  Eddie Baker, who graduated my year and was now on staff with JCF, gave the announcements, followed by Brent and his band playing a few more songs.  After this, Todd and Brent, along with senior Ajeet Tripathi, a junior named Ellie Jo Raymond who was on the worship team with Brent, and sophomores Brianna Johns and Chelsea Robbins performed a skit based on the TV show “Friends,” which most people I knew were obsessed with but I could never get into.  The skit was amusing, but many of the references to the TV show went over my head.  I made a mental note that the first large group two years ago, with the Scooby-Doo skit, was funnier.  Of course, I was a little biased, since I was part of that skit.

The rest of the night was structured similarly to every other JCF meeting I had been to, except that Janet McAllen’s message was fairly light and general about following Jesus without including any heavy theological concepts.  This made sense, because new students who are just checking out all the groups on campus often came to the first meeting of the year, and we did not want to get too intense for students who are just checking out Christianity for the first time.

After the message, the band played one more song, and then the group dispersed.  Jed walked over to talk to a group of students from his year; I followed him.

“Hey, Greg,” Tim Walton said, looking at my name tag.  “‘G?’ Is that what we’re calling you now?”

“What’s up, G?” Brianna Johns asked, emphasizing the G and giggling.

“Todd wrote that as a joke,” I explained.  “How were your summers?”

“I just went home,” Tim explained.  “Nothing special.”

“Same,” Brianna added.  “I was just working.  How was yours?”

“It was good.  I just hung out in Jeromeville, doing youth group stuff with J-Cov.  And I started swing dancing.”

“Fun!” Brianna said excitedly.  “Are they still doing that at the U-Bar?  I went a few times back in the spring.”

“Yeah.  You should come back,” I said, adding in my mind without saying out loud that I could always use more beautiful women like you to dance with.  “And my student teaching program started five weeks ago, and one of my classes here did too.”

“Wow!  You’ve been busy!” Brianna said.

“How is teaching going so far?” Tim asked.

“Pretty good,” I replied.  “So far I’m just observing and helping answer students’ questions.  I’ll gradually start teaching soon, and a few months into the year I get to take over the class.”

Chelsea Robbins turned around, having overheard what I had just said.  “What grade are you teaching?”

“High school.  Geometry and Basic Math B.”

“Here at Jeromeville High?”

“No.  Nueces High.”

“You commute to Nueces every day?  Wow.”

“It’s not that bad of a drive.  And all my classes here are in the afternoon, because these classes are specifically for student teachers who are in the classroom in the morning.”

“That makes sense.  Have the students been nice so far?”

“Some are, some aren’t,” I explained.  “There’s this one girl in the Basic B class who is really mouthy and defiant.  I told her and her friend to get back to work, and she just looked at me and said, ‘I don’t effing have to do what you say.’  But she said the real word.”

“Wow,” Chelsea said.

“So what happened to her?” Brianna asked.

“She got sent to the detention room.  I got to call her mom, my first parent phone call as a teacher, but she didn’t answer.  I had to leave a message.  I can tell I’m going to have trouble with this girl.  On the first day of school, she came with a shirt that said ‘420.’  The master teacher sent her to the office to change on a dress code violation.  I had no idea what that even meant.”

Tim now rejoined the conversation, saying, “You didn’t know what ‘420’ meant?”

“No!” I answered emphatically.  “I grew up sheltered, my only friends were other honors students, and my social life in Jeromeville revolves around church.  How and why am I going to know marijuana slang?”

“You have a point,” he replied.


That night that Todd wrote my name tag as “G” happened during a time when I had lost touch with everyone I knew in high school.  Melissa Holmes was the last high school friend I had heard of, about six months ago.  I got back in touch with Melissa about a year later, and Jessica Halloran not too long after that.  Decades later, at our 30-year class reunion in 2024, I had already arrived when Jessica showed up.  She saw me and immediately said, “Hey, G!  How are you?”  I told her that she and Melissa, who was also at the reunion that night, were still to this day the only people allowed to call me “G.”

Dealing with students like Marie, the girl who cussed me out, was always my least favorite part of teaching.  My strength as a teacher is the subject matter, and it takes so long to walk to my desk and fill out the necessary forms when sending a student out of class that my natural inclination is to just ignore the misbehavior and move on with the material.  However, I also know it is necessary to deal with disruptions immediately, because small problems left unresolved become larger problems later that are more difficult to deal with.  This is true in many areas of life, not just issues of classroom management, and this is something that I am still learning now in middle age.  Early in the student teaching program, Dr. Van Zandt mentioned that teachers are lifelong learners, but we are all lifelong learners in some way regardless of profession.  Life is full of surprises, everything is constantly changing, and nothing I can do will change that.

Readers: What is something that is a key part of your job (or a key part of being in school, if you are a student) that you feel like you are not very good at and still have things to learn? Tell me about it in the comments.

If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.

August 24-25, 1998.  My first days at my student teaching assignment. (#190)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 19 Comments

I pulled out of my driveway on Monday morning and drove down Acacia Drive to the stop sign at Maple Lane.  I turned right on Maple, left at the traffic light onto Coventry Boulevard, and then left again at the second light onto the ramp for southbound Highway 117.  After four years of traveling by bicycle and bus to classes at the University of Jeromeville campus, just a mile from my house, this year would introduce a new experience to my life as a recent university graduate: commuting.

Highway 117 passed through Jeromeville below ground level.  I drove past the ramps for West Fifth Street and Davis Drive, crossing under those streets along with two pedestrian crossings and one street with no access ramps.  The highway then ascended to ground level just south of Jeromeville and merged with Highway 100, the major east-west freeway of this region.

On my right, between the road and a fruit orchard, I saw a sign listing distances to upcoming cities to the west.  Silvey 6 miles, Nueces 16, Bay City 70.  Starting from my house, the commute would probably be around nineteen miles each way if Nueces was sixteen miles from this point.  I could definitely handle a commute of nineteen miles one way every day, especially with good music on the radio.  These days, it seemed like every time I turned on the radio, I kept hearing “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith.  It was a sappy power ballad composed by Diane Warren, who was best known for pop music, not rock.  It was still a pretty good song, though, and it was admirable that a band that had been around for almost three decades could still make big hits.  Maybe I should have this perspective on my life, instead of worrying about getting older now that I was twenty-two years old.

Jeromeville was in the middle of a very long valley that ran mostly north to south, a flat interruption of the mountains that made up most of the western United States.  Nueces was on the western edge of this valley, just below the foothills of a ridge rising about two thousand feet, which I could see ahead of me now.  The sun rises early in the morning this time of year, and the morning light coming from behind me in the east illuminated the ridge enough to see the dark green oaks and bushes growing among the tan dry grass.

On my left, the small city of Silvey interrupted the farms and orchards and cow pastures, but on my right, the agricultural land continued until I reached the Nueces city limits.  The second Nueces exit was Highway 6 coming from the north.  I weaved through the traffic coming from Highway 6 to get into the right lane, so I could take the next exit, Buena Vista Avenue.  This street ran parallel to the freeway; I headed west toward the old part of Nueces.

Nueces was a city of eighty thousand, larger than Jeromeville, and much more populous than the rural area of Plumdale where I went to high school, but somewhat smaller than Gabilan, the city next to Plumdale where my grandparents lived.  Nueces had few tall buildings, typical of cities of its size in the Valley.  Its name, Spanish for “nuts,” referred to walnuts and almonds grown in the area.  I wondered if teenage boys at Nueces High School ever made jokes about their school’s name meaning something that was a slang word for male gonads.  Maybe not, though, since my understanding was that actual Spanish speakers called testicles “huevos,” literally “eggs,” instead of “nueces.”

Buena Vista Avenue narrowed to one lane in each direction just before I reached the school.  The neighborhood looked several decades old, and when I arrived at the school, I noticed that the building looked around the same age as those around it.  The school sprawled across a large campus of one-story buildings, with covered walkways but no proper hallways.  NUECES HIGH SCHOOL, HOME OF THE BULLDOGS proclaimed a sign in the front.

I found the office near the front of the school.  “May I help you?” the secretary asked.  “Are you a new teacher?”

“I’m a student teacher from Jeromeville,” I explained.  “Greg Dennison.”

“Here you go!” she said, grabbing a folder from her desk that had my name on it.  Two others were next to mine, labeled “Ronald Pinkerton” and “Ryan Gaines.”  I recognized those names; they were two other student teachers from my program at UJ who had also been assigned to Nueces High.  “The meeting is right over here in the library,” she said, pointing out the door through which I had just come in.

I walked into the library, about fifteen minutes before school started, and by the time everyone arrived, the first thing I noticed was that I had worried about being underdressed for nothing.  Back in Jeromeville, I usually wore a t-shirt and jeans to class, and a collared shirt and jeans to church.  I dressed slightly nicer today, wearing a collared shirt and slacks, but I was not sure if that was enough.  Looking around the room, though, I saw that many of the other male teachers were wearing t-shirts, jeans, shorts, sandals, things like that.  Some wore baseball caps.  I suspected that they were underdressed because today was a day with no students on campus, and that they would be dressed more nicely next week when the students arrived.

“Greg!” I heard a voice call from halfway across the library.  I looked around at the tables in the middle of the library where everyone sat, and I spotted Josh McGraw waving at me.

“Hi!” I said, sitting at an empty seat next to Josh.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“You know.  My first day.  Just trying to figure all this out.”

“We’ve all been there.  You’ll do fine.  And technically it’s my first day too.”

The principal of Nueces High School, Martin Garrett, welcomed everyone back, then went around the room to introduce the new teachers and the student teachers.  Ron Pinkerton, one of the other student teachers from Jeromeville, was sitting on the other side of Josh and me and noticed me clapping loudly when Mr. Garrett introduced Josh.  “You two know each other?” Ron whispered to me.

“He was my roommate last year and the year before,” I replied.  “He did the science education program at UJ last year and got hired here.”

“Oh, wow!  You both just happened to end up at Nueces High?”

“Yeah!”

Most of that first day was kind of boring.  Mr. Garrett discussed a lot of things which did not all pertain to me as a student teacher.  He led the student teachers on a tour of the campus.  Ron, Ryan, and I met with all of the math teachers. I would be in Basic Math B period 1 with Ms. Kate Matthews and Geometry period 3 with Mrs. Judy Tracy.  The math education program at Jeromeville typically placed student teachers in one grade-level class and one class of students below grade level, so that student teachers would experience a wide range of ability levels.  This was also why student teachers from UJ commuted to Nueces and other nearby cities: Jeromeville was a university town, and many of its students came from much more educated families, atypical of public schools in the rest of the state.

The three of us from UJ were excused from the teacher work day two hours early, because we had a class every Monday back in Jeromeville, Education 306, a seminar with Dr. Van Zandt, the supervisor of our program.  The UJ academic year had not started yet, but this class followed the schedule of the schools where we did our student teaching.


The next day, I drove back to Nueces for more meetings at the school.  After hearing presentations about areas of improvement for the upcoming year, and long-term plans to incorporate more technology into teaching, I went to go find the teachers I would be working with, so I could talk to them in more detail.  I wanted to ask Kate Matthews about Basic Math B, since I was not entirely sure what the class was.

“The thing you have to remember,” she explained to me, “is that most of these students are never going to take another math class in their lives.  This class doesn’t count toward college application requirements, it’s just enough math credits to graduate from high school.”

“What exactly is it that they’ll be learning?”

“We pretty much just go through the textbook.  It’s a survey of math topics, but taught in a way to make it accessible for students who haven’t had algebra or geometry.”

“I see,” I said, flipping through Kate’s copy of the textbook.  “Will I get my own copy of the textbook?  Do I need it yet?”

“You will.  The librarian is really busy right now, but check later this week.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Usually how it works, I’ll tell the students on the first day that you’ll be helping out in our class this year.  Then gradually over the next few months, I’ll be turning the class over to you.”

“Are we avoiding the word ‘student teacher?’  Do we not want them to know that I’m brand new to teaching?”

“It doesn’t really matter.  They’ll figure it out.  Some of them have had student teachers before.  You’ve probably been trained on how to use CRM?”

“I’ve heard the basics,” I explained.  “I have a training for CRM tomorrow and Thursday.”

“We don’t use CRM for Basic B, obviously, so I don’t usually use those techniques in Basic B.  My teaching style is much more straightforward.  We go over the homework, then students take notes on the new material, then they try some problems, and whatever they don’t finish is homework.”

“Makes sense.”

“You’ll be in another class this year, right?  A class that does use CRM?”

“Yes.  Geometry with Judy Tracy.”

“Judy doesn’t use all of the CRM techniques.  If your program is pushing you to use CRM techniques, is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I’ll have to ask my professor about that.”

“No big deal.  Just something to keep in mind.”

Two years earlier, when my brother Mark began high school, my mother told me that the school was using a new math book, from a series called College Ready Mathematics, and that one of the authors of the CRM textbooks was Dr. George Samuels from the University of Jeromeville.  I took a class from Dr. Samuels later that year, and it was he who first put the serious idea in my head to consider teaching as a career.  My brother did not have a good experience with CRM, though; during phone calls with Mom that year, she often jokingly told me to tell my professor that his math book was terrible.

The CRM textbooks were popular in this region, not only because of their local origins, but also because they were paperbacks with no color photos inside, making them considerably less expensive than traditional hardcover textbooks.  The curriculum also satisfied many of the buzzwords that were trendy in education at the time, being based around group work, manipulatives, and student-centered discovery-based learning.  Last year, as part of my orientation to the mathematics education program, I heard Dr. Samuels give a presentation on CRM.  Hearing the program presented from the perspective of an insider, these nontraditional methods made sense.  But for such a program to succeed, students, teachers, and parents would all have to buy in, and there was much that could theoretically go wrong.  I wondered what had gone wrong in Mark’s experience with CRM.  I also wondered exactly which CRM techniques Judy was not using, as Kate said.

Kate’s classroom, Room 129, was a portable classroom.  There were two main classroom buildings, a large one in the middle of campus with one- and two-digit room numbers, and a smaller one west of that with three-digit room numbers.  The portables were even farther to the west, with higher three-digit numbers.  The athletic facilities were east of the main building.  I had two more classrooms to stop by that afternoon.  The first one, Room 108 in the smaller classroom building, had nothing to do with my student teaching assignment.  This smaller building, like the larger building, had outdoor walkways instead of proper hallways, with a row of high windows allowing natural light into the classrooms while blocking students walking by from view of the students inside the room.  I would learn much later that there once was an elementary school located right next to Nueces High, and that when the high school expanded, the school district closed the elementary school and sent its students to other schools.  The high school then absorbed the elementary school campus, and this building was originally the main classroom building of that now-defunct elementary school.

I opened the door to Room 108.  Josh McGraw was inside, unpacking boxes and putting posters up on the wall.  “Hey!” he said when he saw me.  “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to see your classroom.”

“Here it is,” Josh said, extending his arm.  A table was full of an assortment of rulers and balance scales.  A microscope sat on a cabinet in the back.  When I arrived, Josh had been putting up a poster with pictures of the planets of the Solar System.  There were still considered to be nine in those days, including Pluto; it was not until 2006 that Pluto was reclassified into a new category of objects, along with Ceres, at the time considered an asteroid, and other objects not yet known in 1998.  The back of the classroom did have actual windows; they looked out onto a narrow space between this row of classrooms and the adjoining row, a space that appeared to be used only by school maintenance professionals, and possibly trespassing students doing things they were not supposed to.

“What classes will you be teaching?” I asked.

“Two periods of general science, two of biology, and one of AP Physics.”

“Wow,” I said.  “Giving the AP class to a brand new teacher.  I’ve heard that’s rare.”

“It is.  I guess no one else wanted it, and since my degree is actually in physics, it just made sense.  Did you take the Physics 9 classes at Jeromeville?  Did you use this textbook?”  Josh gestured toward a stack of around twenty large and familiar physics textbooks on a shelf.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I have that book at home.”

“Would you be willing to sell it to us?  We’re a few short this year, and we won’t be able to get more for a few months.  I said that there’s a class at Jeromeville that uses that book, so I can ask my friends if anyone has the book and is willing to sell it.”

“Sure.”

“Great!  I’ll tell our department chair.  Just bring it by later this week.”

“Sounds good!” I said.  “I’ll let you get back to setting up.  I need to go find Judy and talk about math stuff.”

“Is she your master teacher?”

“Yeah.  One class with her and one with Kate Matthews.  I’ve already talked to Kate.”

“Nice.  I’ll see you around then.”

I walked back toward the larger building, looking for room 37.  The larger building was very similar architecturally to the smaller one.  I knocked on the door and heard a voice from inside say, “Come in!”  When I opened the door and stuck my head inside, Judy smiled and said, “You’re my student teacher, right?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “Greg Dennison.”

“Come on in!  Did you have any questions for me?”

“First, I just wanted to make sure I could find the classroom.  I did.”  I looked around the room.  On the wall facing the outdoor walkway was a chalkboard, the old-fashioned kind that used actual chalk, as opposed to the dry-erase board in Kate’s room.  Above the chalkboard was a projector screen; not the pull-down kind, but a flat screen that made an angle up from the board so as not to cover any of the board as a pull-down projector screen would.  This room looked pretty old, but it would be adequate.

“Have you had the training for CRM yet?” Judy asked.  I could tell quickly that Judy was not originally from this state; she spoke with a noticeable Southern accent.  I never did learn the story of when and why she moved out west.  Judy was definitely older than Kate, probably in her fifties.

“Tomorrow and Thursday,” I said.  “But I know a little bit about it just because of its connection to Jeromeville.  I heard Dr. Samuels give a presentation on it.”

“Did you ever take a class from George Samuels?”

“Yes, I did.  He was actually one of the ones who suggested that I go into teaching.”

“How nice!”

“Kate told me that you don’t follow all of CRM’s recommended techniques.”

“I don’t know if I’d put it that way, but I see why she would say that,” Judy explained.  “I don’t have them sitting in groups, and I don’t do a lot of manipulatives.  We don’t have a lot of the recommended manipulatives at this school; we’re working on that.  But I do give them opportunities to discuss their work with neighbors.”

“I see.”

“You’ll end up finding something that works well for you.  Every teacher is different.”

“That makes sense.”

“You’ll just be watching me for the first couple months, and walking around to help students when they need it.  And you can start taking over the class as soon as you’re ready.”

“Sounds good.”

“So, tell me about yourself!  Are you married?  Do you have any kids?”

I paused, not expecting this question.  “No,” I said.  “I just graduated from UJ in June.  I turned twenty-two a week ago.”

“Really!  I would have guessed you were a few years older than that.”

“People have always assumed I was older than I really am.  As a kid, I thought it was because I was tall, but that doesn’t make sense as an adult.”

“That could be it,” Judy said.  “I was married when I was young and dumb, and that didn’t work out.  I just got remarried a year ago.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Are you from this area?” she asked.

“I just moved to Jeromeville for school.  I grew up in Plumdale, near Gabilan and Santa Lucia.”

“I love Santa Lucia!  It’s so nice there!”

“It is, but I knew I needed to get away and get on my own.  And Jeromeville offered me a scholarship for my grades.”

“Good for you!”


By the end of that week, I felt much more ready for this new challenge of student teaching.  My two days of training for College Ready Mathematics gave me a much clearer understanding of how the program was expected to work.  I learned about classroom manipulatives like algebra tiles, geoboards, and creative uses of tracing paper to teach concepts like symmetry. I also got my own copy of the CRM Geometry teachers’ edition, so I could start looking over what my students would be learning.

I quickly came to realize that the teaching methods for CRM were not the kind of teaching that came naturally to me.  I did not like working in groups as a student; the rest of the group would never concentrate on what they were supposed to do, and many of them did not know what to do in the first place.  I did not like the idea of forcing students to work in groups, or of teaching them how to work in groups.  I wanted to teach them math, not interpersonal skills that I myself did not possess.  It seemed like this kind of curriculum assumed fully engaged students, and unlimited resources with which to purchase classroom manipulatives and make copies.  For a curriculum developed by people who lived in Jeromeville, with its educated upper-middle-class families, these were reasonable assumptions, but they seemed much less reasonable in a working-class community like Nueces.

Hopefully, as Judy said, I would find a way to make the curriculum my own.   And I would not need to do this overnight.  I would spend the first couple months observing, gradually increasing my responsibilities in the classroom.  I would have plenty of time to figure things out.  It all seemed overwhelming right now, but I felt an excitement building that I did not usually feel at the start of a school year.  I still needed more work-appropriate clothes, I did not want to be inappropriately underdressed when I met the students, but I had a shopping trip planned this weekend.  I finally felt like real life beyond school had arrived.  And, just like Steven Tyler’s voice kept saying on the radio over and over again, I did not want to miss a thing.

Readers: Have you ever had a commute to work or school? What was it like? Tell me about it, or about anything else, in the comments!

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June 20, 1998. Life was beginning to take shape. (#180)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 17 Comments

“Your gown is still in the package?” Mom exclaimed incredulously.  “It’s gonna be all wrinkled!”

“I don’t know!” I replied loudly.  “I don’t think about these things!  I’m a guy!”

“Well, when you’re a teacher, you’ll have to dress nicely, and that means ironing your clothes so they aren’t wrinkled.”

“That doesn’t help me right now,” I said.

“I have an iron,” my roommate Sean said, sitting on the couch and overhearing our conversation.  “Would that help?”

“Yes,” Mom replied.  We had about half an hour until I had to assemble for my graduation ceremony.  Mom, Dad, and my sixteen-year-old brother Mark had driven up from Plumdale yesterday, arriving in the early evening.  They stayed at a motel in Woodville, about ten miles from my house, on the assumption that it would be difficult to find a room in Jeromeville the weekend of graduation.  Mom put a bed sheet on the dining room table, since there was no ironing board, and got most of the wrinkles out of my gown using Sean’s iron.

Graduation day at the University of Jeromeville was more accurately graduation weekend.  The university held five different graduation ceremonies in the Recreation Pavilion, divided by major, with additional separate ceremonies for graduate students and the various professional schools such as medicine, law, and veterinary medicine.  A month or so ago, I had sent an email to my old roommate Brian Burr, who was now on the other side of the country, finishing his first year at New York Medical College.  I mentioned my upcoming graduation, and he said to sneak in a Game Boy, because the ceremony was long and boring.  I had my Game Boy at the house, but it felt disrespectful to sit there playing video games during the most important celebration of my educational career.

After I put on my cap and freshly ironed gown, we all got in the car, and Dad drove the mile south to campus.  The Campus Parking Services department charged full price to park on campus for graduation, which felt like a massive ripoff to me, but graduation was not an everyday occurrence, so I would just suck it up and deal with it this time.  After all, back in 1998, full price was only three dollars, and Mom and Dad were paying.

“I’m supposed to go over there,” I said, pointing to the opposite side of the building from where we were.  I then pointed toward the main entrance and continued, “You get in over there.”

“Okay,” Mom replied.  “We’ll see you afterward.”  Mom hugged me.

“Congratulations,” Dad said, shaking my hand.  “Dad loves you.”

“You too,” I replied.  Mom, Dad, and Mark walked toward the main entrance, and I walked to the other side of the building.  I saw a few people I know, and I said hi and congratulated them.  The informational packet I received a few weeks ago told me to assemble on the south side of the building by 9:45.  I looked at my watch; I was right on time, but after finding my assigned position, I stood there for almost half an hour before the line of graduates began moving forward.  By then, my feet were starting to hurt.

I walked into the Pavilion and looked around.  I was walking on what was usually the basketball court, but it had been covered with over a thousand folding chairs.  The highest level of seating, collapsible bleachers which I had only seen in use during a few heavily attended basketball games, were filled to capacity with family and friends of graduates, as were all the lower levels of seating.  Including the graduates on the floor, there were probably at least ten thousand people in the building.  I had no idea where Mom, Dad, and Mark were, and it was hopeless trying to find them.  I stood at my seat on the floor, as I had been instructed to, listening to the marching band play Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.  They repeated the same section from that piece over and over and over again, as was tradition at graduation ceremonies, as all of the graduates filed in.

Next, some official-looking person in a suit whom I did not recognize walked up to the stage and told us to be seated.  I took a deep breath.  My feet hurt. This was going to be a long day.  I fidgeted in my seat, trying to get comfortable.  The man in the suit introduced himself as the Dean of Something-or-other, and he took several minutes to welcome us all to the ceremony, using big words to make himself sound good.

Two more bigwigs from the university administration spoke next.  I continued fidgeting in my seat, trying hard not to fall asleep as the speaker droned on and on about the challenges we would face in the future.  Her speech was saturated with left-wing buzzwords about the environment and cultural diversity.  The next speaker was even more boring; halfway through his speech, I had really wished that I had followed Brian Burr’s advice to bring a Game Boy.

The valedictorian, a girl named T’Pring Miller who double majored in physics and English, spoke next.  A few weeks ago, I had received a large envelope in the mail with information about the graduation ceremonies, and when I saw the name T’Pring Miller listed on the program, I wondered what language her first name was from.  Years later, I would learn that the name T’Pring came from Star Trek.  I tended to dislike the idea of naming children things based on popular culture, and I hoped that any future children I had would have more traditional names.  Popular culture changes so often that names like this lose their meaning.  I wondered if T’Pring Miller was ever teased about her name growing up, and if that was what drove her to choose such a challenging educational path, double-majoring in two unrelated subjects.

I was bored.  T’Pring Miller was speaking about the challenges she had to overcome in life, but she did not mention her unusual name as one of the challenges.  I was sure that she had a lot of interesting things to say, but I found myself starting to nod off.  I sat up and started wiggling my feet up and down, trying to stay awake.  I did not want to be disrespectful, but I was tired of sitting.  I was ready to walk across the stage and receive my prop diploma.  I knew that my actual diploma would arrive in the mail several months later, but this was not publicly announced to everyone watching.

After what seemed like an eternity, the dean who spoke at the beginning announced that it was time to receive our diplomas.  In the sea of graduates, I was slightly behind the middle, so my turn would not come for a while.  In addition to being uncomfortable and bored, now I also had to pee.  I could see the end in sight, though, as people sitting near the front were gradually moving forward to receive their prop diplomas.

I wondered if Mom and Dad and all of the parents and family members in the audience were as bored as I was.  Mark was probably complaining by now.  I knew some people who were graduating this year but skipping the ceremony entirely.  At first I did not understand why people would not want to celebrate their momentous accomplishments, but now, after seeing how long and boring the ceremony was, I understood.  I finally reached the stage, after waiting for hundreds of people in front of me.  I shook hands with the dean, and someone else handed me a folder that was blank on the inside.  Someone took a photograph of me, which I could buy for an additional fee if I wanted to.

I returned to my seat and waited for the rest of the graduates to walk across the stage.  Finally, almost three hours after the ceremony began, the time came for us to turn our tassels to the other side of our caps, to show that we had graduated.  We then filed out of the Pavilion one row at a time while the marching band played the school alma mater song, the same one I sang with University Chorus at the Waite Hall dedication ceremony last October.  As soon as I was out of sight of the audience, I headed straight for the nearest bathroom.

To the south, between the Pavilion and Davis Drive, was a large lawn, used during the year for intramural sports.  This was where we had assembled a few hours ago before we filed in.  My parents and I had the foresight to pick a general direction to meet after the ceremony, so that we would not get lost in the giant crowd.  When I got there, I spotted a couple of other people I knew and said hi: old classmates, people from Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, and one guy from my freshman dorm.  I eventually found Mom and Dad right where I told them to be.

“Congratulations,” Mom said, giving me a hug.  Dad shook my hand, and so did Mark.

“That was long,” I said.

“I know,” Mom replied.  “But graduations are always like that.”

“So where are we going next?” Dad asked.

“A reception for the math department, in the West Barn.  I’ve actually never been inside the West Barn.”

“And you said you’re getting an award or something?”

“Yes.”

“Can we walk there from here?” Mom asked.

“Sure.  It’s not too far.  Are we ready?  I’d like to get away from these crowds.”


The four of us walked across the lawn and turned east on Davis Drive, toward the core campus.  We passed the turn that led to the South Residential Area, where I lived freshman year.  We continued walking past a brand new science laboratory building on the left and several small buildings on the right.  These so-called temporary buildings were permanent enough to have been there for a few decades.  I then led my parents across the street to the Barn, the student union on this end of campus that was inside what was once an actual barn.  We crossed through the building and exited to a courtyard on the other side of the building, away from the street.

The West Barn Café and Pub, on the west side of this courtyard, was a fancy restaurant that could be reserved for receptions and other formal dinners and luncheons, such as this one for the graduating mathematics students.  It was well-known as the only place on campus where alcohol was served, although none would be at this function.  I had never had a reason to go here, so this building was entirely new to me.  I saw an outdoor patio with tables and umbrellas to my left as I entered the building, with my parents behind me.

“Hi,” someone I did not know, apparently a student assistant, said from behind a table full of programs and name tags.  “What’s your name?”

“Greg Dennison,” I said.

The student assistant handed me a program and my name tag.  “Welcome, Greg,” she said.  “Take a seat anywhere.”

I turned around and asked the rest of the family, “Where do you want to sit?”

“Wherever,” Mom replied.  Dad and Mark seemed equally noncommittal.

I walked to a table near the middle of the room that had four empty seats together.  Jack Chalmers and his parents were at the table next to us.  Jack leaned over and said, “Hey, Greg.  Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I replied.  “You too.  Mom, Dad, this is Jack.  We’ve had a bunch of classes together over the years.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mom replied.  She and Dad both shook Jack’s hand.

“Greg, these are my parents,” Jack said, gesturing toward the people sitting with him.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking Jack’s mother’s and father’s hands, one at a time.

“Are you the Greg that’s getting this award?” Jack’s mother asked.  I looked on her program where she was pointing; it read Department Citation – Gregory Dennison.

“Yes, that’s me,” I answered, smiling.

“Congratulations,” Jack’s mother said.

I turned back with Mom and Dad as more people filed into the building.  Mom asked if I knew anyone.  “Of course I know people,” I replied.  “I’ve had classes with them.”

Dr. Alterman, the department chair who had taught my Number Theory class the previous fall, called the reception to order.  He pointed out the food line, where we would be served out of trays by restaurant employees.  We all lined up for food, and I got chicken, pasta salad, regular salad, and buttered bread.  I returned back to my seat and looked around the room to see who else was here.  I recognized a lot of faces of other mathematics majors who had been in classes with me, and I knew some of their names.  Katy Hadley, the cute redhead, was there, but I did not know her particularly well, and she was never all that friendly, so I did not go out of my way to speak to her.  Alan Jordan sat across the room; the first thing I always noticed about him was that he resembled the actor Norm MacDonald, not only physically but also in his deadpan voice.  Andrea Wright sat with her husband, as well as other family.  Andrea was my first crush at UJ, when her name was Andrea Briggs, and I was disappointed to meet her boyfriend a few months later.  They got married last summer.  Sarah Winters, one of my best friends for our entire four years at UJ, was here with her mother.  I knew that her parents were no longer together, and I did not know whether or not her father was at graduation.  I did not know how that kind of family dynamic worked, and it was none of my business.

Dr. Alterman spoke for several minutes on the importance of mathematics in a connected society.  He used many trendy buzzwords that had arisen in the past few years with the emergence of the Internet into the mainstream, such as “information superhighway.”  Dr. Thomas, a woman of around forty who was one of my favorite professors, spoke after Dr. Alterman.  “Next,” she said, “I would like to present this year’s Department Citation.”

That’s me, I thought, suddenly a little bit nervous.

“This award goes to the undergraduate mathematics major with the highest grade point average in mathematics classes.  This student had straight As in all math classes.  I had the pleasure of teaching this student two years ago in Combinatorics,” Dr. Thomas said, “and he was one of the top students in the class.  I also know him from my work with the Math Club, and I have seen him grow and explore different futures in mathematics as he continues to perform at a high level in the classroom.  The recipient of the 1998 Department Citation in Mathematics is Gregory Dennison.”

Everyone applauded as I walked to the front of the room.  Dr. Thomas shook my hand and handed me a certificate.  “Thank you,” I said.

“Next year,” Dr. Thomas continued, “Greg will be right here at the University of Jeromeville, in the teacher certification program.  When a student of Greg’s caliber chooses a career in education, our young people have a bright future ahead.”

I smiled as I walked back toward my seat.  I felt humbled that Dr. Thomas believed so much in my ability to be a great teacher.  Dr. Thomas had once encouraged me to pursue mathematics research.  She was planning to start a summer research internship at UJ, and she encouraged me to apply to similar programs elsewhere; this was how I ended up in Oregon last summer doing math research.  Sometimes I wondered if Dr. Thomas was disappointed that I did not choose research as a career, but today it certainly did not sound like it.  I sat back down next to Mom, Dad, and Mark; Mom looked at me, smiling proudly.

The other professors at this event took turns announcing recipients of other awards, and recognizing students who had been accepted to particularly prestigious graduate schools.  I sat and listened and applauded politely.  This was more interesting than the graduation ceremony in the Pavilion, since I knew some of these people and recognized most of their faces.  In the past, I would have been envious of these students and the fancy letters that they would have after their names in a few years.  But at this point, I was okay with the path I was on.  I had received my award, and after the events of the last two school years, I now knew that I enjoyed teaching much more than mathematical research.

After the individual awards, Dr. Alterman read the names of all of the mathematics graduates as we all stood up to be recognized collectively.  He then gave a brief concluding speech and congratulated us all once again.  When it was clear that the event was over and people were getting out of their seats, I got up to find Sarah.  Alan found me first.  “Hey, Greg,” he said as he walked by.  “Congratulations on the award.”

“Thanks.  Alan, this is my mom, dad, and Mark, my brother.”  I turned to my family and said, “This is Alan.  He’ll be in the student teaching program next year too.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alan said.  He continued walking toward wherever he was going, and I continued walking toward Sarah.

“Greg!” Sarah exclaimed, giving me a hug.  “Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” I replied.  “You too.”  Sarah introduced me to her mother, and I introduced Sarah and her mother to my family, as I had already done several other times today.  “Sarah lived downstairs from me in C Building,” I explained to my family.  “And I know her from JCF and church.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mom replied.  “I’ve heard Greg talk about you.”

“Next year,” I explained, “Sarah is moving back home to Ralstonville, to do the student teaching program at Ralstonville State.  Is that right?” I asked, turning back to Sarah.

“Yes,” she said.  “But I’ll be up here visiting a few times.”

“Good.  Will you be at church tomorrow?”

“Yeah!  I’ll see you then.”


After the reception, the four of us walked back toward the car.  As soon as we were out of earshot of others, Mark said in his usual exaggerated, sarcastic tone, “I didn’t know you went to school with Norm MacDonald!”

“I know,” I replied. “I noticed that right away when I first met Alan a couple years ago.”

We drove back to the house, and Mom, Dad, and Mark said their goodbyes and left for Plumdale about an hour later.  Later in the summer, I would be back in Plumdale for a week, although I had not decided on the exact dates yet.

I went back to my room to check my email.  I did not feel all that different now that I was a graduate of the University of Jeromeville.  And my life would not look that different over the summer.  I would continue volunteering with the youth group at church and going to Bible study.  I planned on going for bike rides around Jeromeville while the weather was warm and dry.  I also had some special events this summer, including Scott and Amelia’s wedding a week from now and Josh and Abby’s wedding in August.

My life had changed so much in the last four years.  When I graduated from Plumdale High School, I was excited to get out of Santa Lucia County and make a new start somewhere else, because I was tired of the same old thing and ready for something different.  But I did not know what my future would look like.  Today, though, life was beginning to take shape.  And instead of being excited to get away, I was ready to stay in Jeromeville for a long time.  Through the influence of friends, including Sarah, I had learned over the last few years what it really meant to follow Jesus Christ.  I had become more involved in church, which gave me a sense of community here.  And I had a plan for my future: I was going to teach high school mathematics.  I would be good at it, according to Dr. Thomas.  My Christian values felt out of place at times in a university town like Jeromeville, but Jeromeville was now my home, and I hoped to stay here and raise a family here someday.  Of course, as is often the case, my future did not end up looking like that at all.  But at that moment, I had a plan, and I was ready for what came next.

I’ll be taking a few months off before I start season 5. I need time to plan too (in writer lingo, I’m a plotter, not a pantser). But I will post on here a few times; I need to do a summary of the year at some point, and I may have a few other things to say.

Tell me anything you want in the comments. Anything at all.

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