a better kind of shock

It's like my kids know JUST how much bullshit I can handle before they decide to throw me a bone and be fucking awesome.  I've been working with this one eighth grade girl for the whole time I've been at the school -- she was a lot quieter than other students and I started pulling her and two other girls aside to work with me, since they were getting lost in what's a pretty wild classroom.  When I started working with her second quarter, her average in the class was a D.  This was because she couldn't understand the homework, no matter how hard she tried... so I got in the habit of checking her homework with her once a day before she turned it in.  Her grade started to rise a bit and though I still help her out everyday, she definitely has more confidence in math.

This isn't just any eighth grade math, this is like, stuff with exponents and shit that baffled me a bit when we started on it.  I actually had to reteach myself how to do it so I could help her out.  Last week, the day before the "check-up" (what they call tests), she and I sat down for a few minutes so I could explain with her one-on-one the difference between using x as an exponent and just multiplying a number by x, and when to write the exponent as x-1, and how to enter this in a calculator so she can read a table.  And, you know what?  Apparently I taught it WELL.  Because she ate that test for lunch.  She pwned it.  She got an A+.

"I'm so stinkin' proud of you," I told her.

She grinned at me, which was great to see because she's normally a very stoic teen.  "Thanks!"

And then I had to reteach myself scientific notation so I could explain it to her.