As many of you may know, I recently changed jobs, and for a classroom teacher who trained to be a classroom teacher and just completed a second degree to extend her certification as a classroom teacher, this was pretty life-altering. To clarify, I did apply for this new position. I actually applied at the end of last school year with the hope that I would begin this school year as a "Consulting Teacher," working with first year teachers in my school district and formally observing them as part of the tenure track. However, I did not get the job, and so my life went on as planned.
Fast forward to the second week of school (as in last month). My classroom was all set, my students were on their way to accomplishing great things, my planning was, for once, ahead of schedule. I had vowed to make this the "best year ever." And truthfully, those first two weeks of school were really great.
Then I got an e-mail, which led to a phone call, which led to a job offer; Consulting Teacher. Evidently the school district underestimated the number of new elementary teachers it would hire for this school year, and suddenly they were asking me to leave my fledgling classroom to work with 22 of these new teachers. I had to make a decision; stay in the classroom and my comfort zone (which I had spent the entire summer psyching myself up about), or accept the job I had applied for and been denied (and for which I missed weeks of training).
Well, for those of you who actually read the first part of this post haven't given up despite my rambling... I took the job. My life has since been a complete whirlwind, though I'm finally seeing the blue skies ahead. But for a while there, I felt completely turned around.
And that brings us to the seed of this week's challenge, though admittedly it doesn't have much to do with my l-o-n-g story. I know many of us have had these type of experiences; a complete 180. And that got me thinking (in a Grandpa sort of way) about other 180s. For example, a straight line is 180 degrees, the International Date Line runs very close to 180 longitude... you get the point, right?
This week, I challenge you to post other "180s." I'm tempted to give extra credit to references outside the unit circle and Babylonian mathematics, but as always, the winner will be selected at random, so feel free to post anything you can think of! You may post as many solutions to this challenge as you'd like, and the winner will receive a prize of 180... somethings. You'll have to play to find out!
(Thank you, Teri, for reminding me to post an end date for this challenge! All entries are due by Sunday, October 23 at 5:00pm CST. Hopefully that gives everyone enough time to get math-y! Hooray for 180!)
