It dawned on me yesterday morning that my students had no idea why teachers were looking tired this week. Most teachers were accepting late work from students and the students were taking advantage of it. Some students were handing in the majority of their assignments on half torn, sheets of crumpled paper and they were then expecting them to be graded promptly. It was a perfect opportunity to help students use some of their math skills and at the same time help students understand why record keeping was important.

I started the quick lesson by asking how many students were enrolled in my classes this semester. A few shouted the answer 100 and one student proudly said 1000. We finally calculated approximately 200 students by counting the number of students in attendance during the class period and multiplying by the six classes I taught. I then explained that the teacher next to me had 240 students on her roll book.

They were stunned. However, the fun had not yet begun.

Now, I asked, "how many assignments should we have turned in for grading this semester?"

There was a long pregnant pause until a meek student raised her hand and said 51. It was actually 91 but that's close enough :down:

Assuming each assignment is one nice, clean, three hole punched, 8.2" x 11" piece of paper, we multiply the number of students by the number of assignments then we have the approximate total number of pieces of paper a teacher handles in the semester.

So, the math begins. 51 times 200 equals ...

And finally after seeing calculators being punched and profanity used to exclaim that someone moved the times key, a bold student proclaimed 1 million three hundred and fifty thousand. There is laughter.

"Uhm. Does anyone else agree? Maybe we should check our math again."

The classroom erupts and people are looking at each other. "This can't be right!" says one pimpled, faced teenager. "Mr. H, is it really over 10,000 pieces of paper?"

Yes, over 10,000 pieces of paper. And now the bad news class and readers of this math lesson. The actual number of assignments collected and graded in my high school biology classroom for the fall semester 2003 was 91 assignments graded per student.

If all students had turned in assignments then I would have collected and graded over 18,000 pieces of paper. As shameful as it might sound, sometimes I'm all too happy when someone doesn't do their homework and classwork. And I'm more than grumpy when half my students attempt to pass in their work the last week of the semester.

"Now class. Let's calculate how tall this stack of papers would be if we made one big, huge stack."

Calculators buzz ... and a balled up piece of paper flies across the room, smacking a student dazed because he'd been up all night working to keep his family clothed and fed. I wondered quietly to myself if I could calculate the speed the ball of paper had reached when it hit the kid's head.

As intellectual readers, I will not bore you with the details of either of these last two calculations. It took students nearly 30 minutes to argue over the use of inches or the metric system. Scientists use the metric system. Besides, surely you can do this on your own.

However, imagine now if there was a way to get rid of that stack of papers. It would be a dream. An impossible dream if it were not for the Tablet PC, a computer which should be in the hands of every student so that the question would not be how fast does the balled up paper travel but rather how much hard drive space is required to keep the semester assignments on one hard drive.

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Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

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