My Annual Christmas Beard

Let me make this clear-this is a bit weird- but there is a story behind it.

When I went to Carleton University in the 80's I was fortunate enough to play for the basketball team. By the way they have been the best team in Canada for over a decade.

When December first would roll around and basketball would take a break for exams I started a tradition of growing a beard till Christmas day. Anyone that has known me in my teaching career knows that I have kept this tradition since. Check out this kids comment on RateYourTeacher from "Apr 03, 2003 Go Overwijk. If you have this man, you'll like it best around Christmas. The reverse hair is hilarious. Nice tradition though." So that makes it a true story and a true tradition.

Now over the years I have started growing my beard much earlier than December first, much to the dismay of my wife, but tradition is tradition. Here is a photo of me today.



This year I decided to collect some data on beard growth. Here it is. Don't be too grossed out!

WCWDWT?

How about:
On what date did I stop shaving this year?
How long will my beard be on Christmas day?
How long would it take me to be Santa? (hint)

Any other wonderings? questions?
Also I am taking answers and solutions to the first two questions. Answers revealed on Christmas day!

UPDATE! December 28th, 2014
So before I show final work and reveal answers here is a couple pictures of the final product. Particularly proud. As Andrew Stadel @mr_stadel hashtagged #beardoweirdo !

 

Here is my solution to the original questions based on the data that I collected.



 

And now for the actual date I stopped shaving Tuesday October 22nd.

 

As for the length of my beard I took three samples and the longest was 4.45 cm. Here is a picture.

 



 

And what would be growing a beard without a little fun shaving it off.



And finally back to normal. #happywife. Hey is that a glass of red wine in the background? Gotta go!



My first tweet up - one on one with Justin Lanier

Pretty cool evening recently. Tried to explain it to friend. Went down something like this.

Him: "What are you up to tonight?

Me: "Hooking up with a guy from the math twitter blogosphere"

Him: "What's that?"

Me: Long explanation about #MTBoS

Him: "Do you know him?"

Me: "Not really"

Him: "Do you know where he is from?

Me: "No."

Him: "Is it safe?"

Me: "Ya of course it is safe!"

Of course it is safe - in a way. The #MTBoS is a wonderful place. People share, contribute, vet ideas, and get to kinda know each other.

Then this happens:

So for the first time I go out and meet someone from the #MTBoS that is not from my own city.

And it is great. We talk about teaching and education. We talk about math. We share ideas. We tell stories.

We share personal stuff. We put a real face to a name we know online.

We tweet about our tweet up.

We both took a risk. We are that type of people.

We will meet again at twitter math camp in Jenks, Oklahoma this summer.

It is a great time to be in education-take risks-it is worth it.

As @BDMcLaurin would say freefall!

How I Came to Blogging

This blog post is for Kate Nowak (@k8nowak) who has requested the online math community to tell me why you blog. "True story" - this is what I always say when I tell a story. Another favourite line of mine is "it is better to make stories than to tell them."

1. What hooked you on reading the blogs? Was it a particular post or person? Was it an initiative by the nice MTBoS folks? A colleague in your building got you into it? Desperation?

I can remember the moment about 5 years ago that I was teaching a lesson on Vectors via chalk and talk on a Friday afternoon (17th year of teaching) and the words/explanations and numbers/formulas were coming out of my mouth and were being written on the board and I was already at my cottage. WOW -  I was disengaged, imagine the engagement of my students - YIKES! SOMETHING NEEDED TO CHANGE!

 

I was fine in my academic classes. (They would of learned without me.) But my at risk classes were doing poorly. I needed to change it up. Thanks to Bruce McLaurin we went down the pathway of activity based teaching. I wrote about it here.

 

I eventually saw Dan Meyer's TedTalk. Followed his blog-it was a game changer.

 

2. What keeps you coming back? What's the biggest thing you get out of reading and/or commenting?

I get great ideas about a bunch of different aspects in teaching. Plain and simple. I get more PD then everyone else. That should make me better.

3. If you write, why do you write? What's the biggest thing you get out of it?

It took a while to get me writing but I am now getting into it. I am a poor writer. I was apprehensive because of it - but I have finally decided not to care about this. Hopefully I will get better at it.

The biggest thing I get out of it - competition. I am ultra competitive - I want to be the best.

Anyone who really knows me would not be surprised by this.

4. If you chose to enter a room where I was going to talk about blogging for an hour (or however long you could stand it), what would you hope to be hearing from me? MTBoS cheerleading and/or tourism? How-to's? Stories?

I could only hope to be in that room. After Dan's blog you were next. Of course I only lurked! and then implemented. I would want to hear your story. Trials and tribulations, successes and failures. A little advice.

GOOD LUCK with your presentation.

MTBoS

The math twitter blogosphere is a great place. I started lurking in it a long time ago ( when Dan Meyer's Ted Talk kind of went viral). I owe it this:

What did I do? 

I read people's blogs, stole their ideas, incorporated them into my lessons, changed the way I structured my courses, started valuing the mathematical processes in my classes, changed the way I evaluated and assessed students, let other teachers into my class, ........ and the list could go on. I even started this blog eventually.

What didn't I do?

I stole and I stole but I never offered anything in return. No revised activities, no new activities, no comments to others.  I always used the excuse that I had no time. I coach basketball, a lot of it. I refuse to take excuses from my players. Hypocrite..............
 

What I am going to do about it?

I am going to take part in this. Of course it is already mission #4 of which I have done ziltch. I hope that I can get involved instead of being a bystander.

Wish me luck!