About Pi and special kids

The second week of march was special at Gaithersburg HS, it was our 3rd celebration of pi day. Since March 14th was on a Saturday, we made it a pi week. The highlight of the week is the recitation of pi. Our first year with the pi recitation had a winner with a respectable 315 digits, last years champion upped the count to 500. This year, last year's champion improved upon his 500 when he faltered at the 675th digit of pi, impressive? Yes, but then sophomore William Briggs destroyed the record and competition reciting 2007 digits of pi. Yes, 2007!!! You can read about the fun here http://www.gazette.net/stories/04012009/montsch222053_32475.shtml.

About Spring Break

Hurray!!! I made it...spring break is here. Students can't wait for it, teachers need it. This spring break, I am vacationing with my family for the first time. We are driving down to the happiest place on earth tomorrow. Well, more of a two day trip. I cannot wait, mom and Mads are going for the first time. I can't wait to see the fireworks...they were the best part of my last trip there. We will be meeting up with the Grandparents at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I just have this feeling that I'm going to have very little "adult time" with my wife. Ahh, the suffering and sacrifice of the father. Oh well.

About Blogging

Geesh! I suck at this. Well, not really, just don't have time to do it enough. I've been teaching...high school, teaching...grad school, and coaching lacrosse. When do people have enough time to do this. I'm going to make a concerted effort to do much better. I'm also going to be advertising this blog in hopes of getting a few readers.

About becoming a teacher

I was always a teacher, just never knew it...and it took a long while to figure it out. After graduating university, I got my first job at AT&T Canada (Unitel, Alstream, CNCP, etc.) where I moved up through the company to just below middle management. However, with each different position at AT&T, I really enjoyed the training aspect of what I was doing, whether demonstrating how a Microsoft office product worked or doing switch translations.
The job that brought me to Maryland as a Network Operations Manager increased my opportunities to teach (train) my employees. After three years with the company, probably the best possible thing happened...I got laid off. Sweet!

Over the next year, I took care of my daughter while I looked for a job, I found one as a Computer Science paraeducator at Takoma Park Middle School This was great, a chance to work with computers and a chance to teach. At that time, I decided I wanted to teach and to teach mathematics. Love math, always loved math, always will love math!!! For the next two years I went to school getting the math credits I needed, Differential Equations, Number Theory, Statistics, and Non-Euclidean Geometry. Those were actually fun courses, except for the Diff. EQ.

Having completed by math requirements, I was accepted into the Johns Hopkins University ProMAT program. I program designed for career changers and those who want to teach. The cost being two years of your life working for long-term substitute pay. It was tough, but well worth it.

My two years as an intern were at Gaithersburg High School in Gaithersburg, MD. It is an awesome school, with awesome kids, and an outstanding staff. I cannot say enough good things about the students and teachers...OK, and administrators. They all work hard, but I'd like to see the students work harder. While the people inhabiting GHS are great, the building is in rough shape. It has been well used...very, very well used. The time has come for a new building.

My first year as a "real" teacher has been a lot tougher than my two years as an intern. I don't feel like I'm doing anything differently, but the students this year a challenging me more than in the past. I'm dealing well with it, but it is frustrating. I want them to succeed, however, when I don't see the effort, I feel sorry for them. I also think, what is it that I can do to motivate them?What can I do better? I don't know the answers, but I do know that I will keep trying.

About me and critical thinkers

Hey all,

I'm a math geek, love science, and crave the need for people to have intelligent coherent thoughts. Life without critical thinking is...not productive, and truly a waste of time. There are two reasons that directed be away from religion and towards reason.


The first is the intolerance of religion...any religion. I just cannot in be part of an organization that says they live by the word of the lord and bible, but show such intolerance of people that are different. I am not saying that the problem was one particular member in the church, but there are too many members that have different ideoligies than I, both politically and socially. I would just like to remind everyone in any congregation that jesus was the ultimate socialist and therefore the republican ideals are against the church.

The second reason is more clear. I have always been a person of math, science, logic, and critical thinking. No matter how hard I tried, I cannot believe in god of the bible. Science tells me prayer does not work. Science tells me that miracles have real cause and not influenced by an outside force. Science, logic, and critical thinking tell me there are way too many contradictions in the bible. Science, logic, and critical thinking tell me that there are too many religions each with their own version of god and interpretation of god for there to be one single all powerful force.


I started reading, Dawkins, Hitchens, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, science blogs, freethinking blogs. Again, I was an idiot. But now, I have no worries.