What Makes Me Smile

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Today I found a copy of the Bonduel Middle School Grizzly Gazette, November 2010 issue, on the kitchen table.  The Gazette is written by eighth grade communication arts students at the school. 

In addition to a nice article about the school's W.E.B. (Where Everyone Belongs) Program, there were two stories about Coach VerBruggen, aka Mr. V., that caught my attention.

8th Grade Football Team
By:  Danny T. and David P.

"The eighth grade football season went pretty well.  The team's record was 5-1 with Witt-Burn as their only loss.  There were about twenty-six boys on the team.  Coaches for them were Coach VerBruggen and Coach Bergsbaken. 

Their first game was against Shiocton in Bonduel, which the Bears won by one or two touchdowns.  It was close in the beginning, but they pulled away with the win at the end. 

Their next game was a blowout against Tigerton/Marion at Marion.

Oconto was their third game at home.  They won that game by about one touchdown. 

The next game was against Witt-Birn.  It was close, but Witt-Birn pulled off the win.

Wega was their last home game, and they won 56-0.

Then their final game was at Manawa, and the Bears won somewhere around 52-8.

In conclusion, the eighth grade boys were pretty successful this season.  They're just hoping they'll do this well, or better, as freshmen.  Good luck with that!"

"Good luck with that!" just hit me funny and made me laugh out loud.

Then, a few pages back...

Algebra
By:  Kevin J and Benjamin R.

"With Mr. VerBruggen, the new 8th grade math and communications arts teacher, it's fun doing algebra.  There is no reason to be afraid of it.  He is very good at teaching and explaining all the details.

This year there are enough 8th grade students who qualified for algebra to fill a class.  Rather than schedule them in a high school class, which had been done for many years, Mr. V. has taken on the challenge of teaching them.

It is fun doing problems once students have learned how to solve them.  Even a/5 X 6/5 = 12/5 isn't very hard really.  All you have to do is divide everything by 5, and then the equation is:  a X 6 = 12.  Divide each side by 6, and you just did algebra.  So try it and join the fun!"

That just cracked me up!  It looks like Mr. V. has indeed taken on a "challenge" teaching them Algebra!  I'm very sure that Mr. V. would NOT tell them to "divide everything by 5" (they would reverse operations and multiply both sides by 5 or 5/1).  Then they can divide both sides by 6.  I think Kevin and Benjamin might need some more fun Algebra practice!  Maybe they should be a little more afraid of Algebra.  :-)