I Realized Something Today

I realized something about myself today...it's really weird...I count things.  Yes, I know you are thinking a math teacher that counts things...of course you do!  But, I realized that I count things without knowing I am counting them.  Like, for example, when the copy machine is copying, I realize in the middle that I am on copy 47.

Have you ever played the game where you have to guess how many things are in a jar?  When I look at something like that, a number comes to me - I don't calculate anything, I just think of a number.  I'm always pretty close to the number of things in a jar.

Years ago, I had a student - Emily her name was - she is probably the best math student I have ever had.  She could just see things that the other kids couldn't.  She was also my student aide.  She was in my office one day when she got out a box of tic-tacs.  One of my other aides said, "Hey can I have one?"  I watched Emily slowly - as slowly as she could, hand over the box of tic-tacs.  She obviously didn't really want to share, but couldn't think of a reason not to.  

Later, after the other student left, she said, "Did you know that there are almost always 36 tic-tacs in a package?  I usually try to eat them 4 at a time so that I will have an even number in each serving of tic-tacs."  Therein lay the problem that she was faced with when she was asked to share - who knew how many tic-tacs the other person would take?  If she didn't know, she was likely to end up with an odd number of tic-tacs at the end of the package.  Not a comfortable feeling for her!

Math people are weird : )