<p>No, not chem - philosophy. She ended up disappearing about 4 weeks into the semester. Just quite showing up. The school had to scramble to find someone to teach the class. it was dual credit with a local college and scheduling was hard. The new guy wasn’t a lot better, and overall the class was a waste of time. And even worse, turned my son off of philosophy as a subject of study - a subject i think he would really appreciate if taught well.</p>
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How can you be absolutely sure she wasn’t there?</p>
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<p>Nice! I’m still chuckling at this…</p>
<p>We had one case that was more a problem with the school than the teacher but it exhibited itself in bizarre teacher behavior. In high school D1 had a teacher who suffered a stroke part way through the term. The school brought in a substitute to finish out the term. Fine. But for some reason they insisted that the orginal teacher, who was still at home recovering and had not yet fully regained her wits, assign the final grades. And in her confusion she gave the entire class Cs except for one random kid who for no particular reason got a B.</p>
<p>We were astonished, because D had earnd A grades on all the tests up to that point. And, not yet understanding the real problem, we could not understand how she could have fallen so far on the final. D was crushed because she had been a straight-A student for her entire life up to this point. </p>
<p>After we found out that the whole class had gotten Cs we were next alarmed because the school refused to do anything to straighten it all out. They said they would just have to wait until the teacher recovered and returned to work to see if she wanted to change any of the grades she had assigned. This was all happening just as we were getting ready to submit transcripts for college applications. </p>
<p>Eventually she did return to work and everything got corrected. Daughter got her A. But to this day I don’t understand why the school made the poor stricken teacher get up off her sick bed to assign the grades in the first place. Why didn’t they just have the substitute assign the final grades?</p>
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<p>Any chunk of copper on the earth would have a pretty decent amount of water vapor adsorbed onto the surface. ;)</p>
<p>I remember one of my professors saying to us, "Homeworks are always easier than tests. On homeworks, you have unlimited time!</p>
<p>Ummm… the “Statue of Liberty” in Paris isn’t exactly a replica—it’s a working model that was made before the one in New York Harbor: [Replicas</a> of the Statue of Liberty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicas_of_the_Statue_of_Liberty]Replicas”>Replicas of the Statue of Liberty - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Guidance department at our High School insists that the PSAT’s are strictly “practice” for the SAT’s, nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>There is a school administrator who was going to be counseling the hispanic students on the need to go to college. My junior year daughter went to her meeting. The admin looked at her schedule and said “Are you an exchange student?”</p>
<p>My daughter’s schedule was full of APs. Clearly this woman did not think that a homegrown Latina could be a high achiever.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>My Hispanic friend (5th generation US) complains that every time she’s had to enroll her kids into a different school, the new school tries to put her kids into ESL classes. She’s had a hard time explaining that her children only know English because she and her H only know English (except for a smattering of French from their own high school and college years).</p>
<p>Our high school has a nutty teacher with an imaginary cat. She gets very upset if people mistreat her imaginary cat, one boy threw it out the window and got into trouble. I told my kids if they were assigned her as a teacher I would tell the principal they are severely allergic to cats and needed to be assigned a different teacher. (FYI - their cat allergy is entirely imaginary).</p>
<p>School emailed me: “we’re missing the physical exam form for your child. They can’t play a sport until you get the form in.”
Before I go through my records, I email back: “which child are we talking about” so I know if it’s D (senior) or S (freshman).
Response: “It’s your 2nd grader.”</p>
<p>I call a friend. “Do I have a 2nd grader?” (which isn’t such a dumb question because people in our town have been known to have second families – without the first wife knowing…).
She thought about it, then said, No – you do not have a 2nd grader. Phew!</p>
<p>I told the school the same.</p>
<p>The philosophy teacher was exactly spot on about the water, and I"m saying this as an engineer.</p>
<p>I would like the student to show me a piece of copper that doesn’t have one single molecule of water in it. 100.0000000000…% copper. You can’t find such a thing! All copper has impurities. We have to test and evaluate the copper to determine whether or not water is in there.</p>
<p>The student’s idea of copper is a human-defined concept of pure copper that doesn’t exist in nature. My definition of copper may not include water or other impurities, but in real life, no copper is perfectly pure.</p>
<p>We once received a thing in the mail from one of my son’s middle school teacher saying he had had someone else do an assignment for him and handed it in in his own name. I chewed him out, he was very confused and looked at the copy of the thing she had sent me and said that wasn’t even him (it was student ID numbers instead of names, and I didn’t know his). When I called the teacher she said “Oh, God, did I send that to you, that wasn’t your son - that was XXXXX (and gave me the kid’s name)”. I made her write us a letter confirming that her original one was in error, and talked to an adviser to make sure nothing remained on his record. But my son (now 24) still remembers that “I” unfairly accused him, and my going to bat with the teacher and school did not make up for it.</p>
<p>I should have known better really. He never cared enough about school work to go to the trouble of having someone do it for him!!</p>
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<p>That’s cool. Engineers would definitely be thinking of copper as real stuff as it exists in a way we can use it practically. Or copper that can be a chunk in one’s hand. In a philosophy class, one can definitely speak in ‘human defined concepts’, for example, an element. The students used copper as an example of something pure enough not to have water in it. Copper the element. </p>
<p>You might be nitpicking something that doesn’t need to be nitpicked. Or maybe nitpicking in the wrong direction? The same teacher swore she had a pet rock that could detect her moods when she got home and wasn’t joking. She didn’t give a single grade for any student for anything in the four weeks she taught before she quit showing up. Maybe she was thinking “in the real world, it’s quite difficult to find a real chunk of copper with no impurities” and just didn’t bother saying it, but i think not.</p>
<p>@classof15…LOL.</p>
<p>Reminds me of a female physician friend.</p>
<p>She volunteered at her local school to give free sports exams. So, she and some other male doctors were doing the exams. The principal (a male) called her over and told her to stop giving boys exams (you know, the look over your shoulder and cough one) because she might be molesting them (even though parents/nurses were present). What an idiot principal!</p>
<p>(BTW…this woman had been an army doctor, so giving that exam had been like nothing to her…she’d done thousands.)</p>
<p>*Our high school has a nutty teacher with an imaginary cat. She gets very upset if people mistreat her imaginary cat, one boy threw it out the window and got into trouble. I told my kids if they were assigned her as a teacher I would tell the principal they are severely allergic to cats and needed to be assigned a different teacher. (FYI - their cat allergy is entirely imaginary). *</p>
<p>LMAO! (and considering your screenname! LOL)</p>
<p>this truly is an example of a nutty teacher. Punishing a kid for pretending to throw an imaginary cat out a window? What next? Would she call the police if a student pretended to steal money from an imaginary wallet?</p>
<p>I didn’t even think of my screen name. LOL.</p>
<p>I’d bring in my large imaginary dog. The imaginary cat would flee the room once it caught a glimpse of the imaginary dog. Imaginary problem solved.</p>
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<p>Ah, that was my school, too. And unless you were planning to go out of state they told you to take the ACT and ignore the SAT anyway, so I had no idea there was any reason at all to take it.</p>
<p>I could write a book on the idiotic things said and done by teachers, guidance and the administration at our kids’ HS. Ours were fortunate to have parents who helped them wade through the bs and ignorance so they could prepare for the college app process. Still feel bad about the talented kids who weren’t so lucky with family support and could have benefited from some wisdom and guidance at school…and there were MANY.</p>
<p>A sampling: Called the NHS advisor to inquire why S was never notified if he was selected after working very hard to gather all the required information, letters, etc. to apply. She started rambling on about what a wonderful kid I have, how bright, talented, etc. etc. Then just before hanging up says…“I’m sure your daughter will be hearing from them soon.” -arghh-</p>