I just had a job interview at a lovely independent school in Northern California. I have watched this school grow up for 14 or 15 years and have been such a die-hard public school wonk, it took me a long time to have a paradigm shift in order to apply. So I did apply. It was a lovely interview, so different than a public school:

Public school: 11 Questions must be asked in same order to all interviewees
Independent: Wow, so you took a year off from your school to teach at your daughter's school? How was that? What was different about those experiences?

Public school: 10 minute demo lesson to 5 or 6 adults
Independent: 30 minute live lesson with kiddos and the ENTIRE interview committee, plus head of school

Public school: Interview
Independent: Interview with all members of math and science department (one department). 30 minute live lesson, 30 minute meeting with Head of School and Asst. Head of School and Champ (head of school's furry chihuahua)

You know, I just let it rip. I had nothing to lose for being absolutely me. My given topic: Intro to Logic 2.1 to 2.3 McDougal Geometry.

Here is my the lesson:

Find the next three terms in the pattern: 2, 4, 8, ....

I was thrilled! 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
                       2, 4, 8, 64, 3904, 15,990,784                     Can you figure these out?
                       2, 4, 8, 14, 22, 32                                       Did the adults keep quiet...heck no! They
                                                                                          raised their hands with wild enthusiasm.

Then we played the four letter word game: I am thinking of a 4 letter word...book...2 correct, food, 2 correct...what do you know? Must be the oo...tool...3...pool...2...must be too...took...3...toot? BINGO!
How are these two different! Bingo again! Tha,t my friends, is the difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning...blah, blah, blah.

We then wrote our favorite Law of Syllogism sayings from Laura Numeroff's series "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," in if-then form and made them syllogisms and then I had them write them in symbolic form stating, "If P equals If you give a Pig a Pancake," and If "Q equals, She will want some syrup to go with it, " etc...


Oh, did I mention:

Public School: 32 students
Independent:  12 students (In that case, I had five Mouse a Cookie type books by Laura Numeroff...plenty to go around)

They were cutting me off and ripping those intellectually thirsty students out from under my spell!

Anyhoo, I got home from a run the next day,with this This American Life podcast chirping through my earphones. (Episode 464, Act 2). A must for any geek. See, Tig Notaro, keeps bumping into a certain celeb around Los Angeles. She is desperately trying to make a connection to this celeb whom she adores. With the same fan line, Tig goes for it...every.single.encounter. Wish I had had this lesson in my hat...