The Teacher

Yesterday, while watching the Super Bowl, my Mom talked about how she had an assignment due in her PowerPoint class and did not know how to do it. Diana talked me into stopping by my parents and helping her out with PowerPoint (not that I am expert).

I got to the house around 5pm and we started her presentation. She needed to create a Master title slide and then a master content slide. This is pretty easy to do. You can find the instructions here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA100780111033.aspx. My Mom actually needed a little more help than that. She needed to know how to draw boxes and change fonts and move things around. One of the other things that she needed to know how to do was load her own pictures onto a slide. These things are pretty basic for me, but Diana has a point that most people need to be shown how to do these things. I have been using computers for so long I can look at an icon and know what it should do.

I spent the hour with my Mom and she said I should become a trainer. That probably would not be best as I get annoyed pretty fast when I explain things and people don't understand them. Here is an example:

I got home from my parents and Chloe says she needs math help. She shows it to me and it is the same problems that we worked on last week (order of operations with fractions). I was annoyed. It took my wife to calm me down and actually help Chloe get her math done. Diana says I do not usually teach, I just do. When I do math with the kids I grab the pencil and show them one or two problems and then let them take over. Hopefully Chloe has learned her order of operations, we have now spent two nights teaching and learning how to do them.

I think after all this work my Mom and Chloe better both get A's on their assignments or they will have me to answer to.

Science project update: We finished Jordan's science project last night. He turned it in and did his oral presentation today. I am excited to see how he did. Jordan also got a B on his Wordly Wise (English) test from last week. Way to go Jordan! Jordan is trying to get his grades up so he can go to Sacramento this summer. Good luck!