Pie Day

Yesterday, 3/14, was Pie Day. Mathematicians will argue that it’s supposed to be written “Pi Day,” but they are wrong. Many folks out there remain confused about what Pi actually is. It’s not your fault. The public school system failed you.

Allow me to clear it up for you.

Pi is misnamed. You see, Pi is really derived from pie, but mathematicians were too lazy to keep including the “e” for some reason. Pi, of course, is the numerical value of the culinary measure of how much pie is left, using the mathematical relationship between the circumference of the outer crust of the pie and the length across the center of the pie, where the fork marks are.

Pi’s value changes based on how many slices of the pie have been eaten. Even if there is only one slice missing and you can still measure across the middle of the pie in most places, the circumference of the crust has nevertheless been reduced by one slice worth, or in mathematical terms, “one crust radian segment.”

The value of Pi changes constantly, but never repeats, because obviously no one ever adds slices back to a pie. The larger the value of Pi, the happier you are, because there is still more pie left. Unfortunately, in my experience, the value of Pi is usually equal to zero by the time I get home, because my teenage boys ate all of it.

We were miseducated in our early years regarding Pi. For instance, one falsehood perpetrated upon us by the math teachers of America was the idea that pie are squared. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pie are round. Cornbread are squared. It’s natural to be confused about what Pi is based on the lack of educational veracity we experienced.

Can we ever calculate Pi’s true value? While some mathematicians still foolishly argue this point, the obvious answer is no. Pies come in all different sizes, and are either being cooked (expanding), being cooled on the windowsill (contracting), or being eaten. Pi is never a static number, and it varies from pie to pie, so you don’t need to worry about what it is. Don’t beat yourself up about not understanding it. You were misinformed. Again, it’s not your fault. Just enjoy that slice of pie, and know that you are reducing the value of Pi by eating it.

“What about other things that call themselves pies, but aren’t dessert?” you might be asking yourself. “Are they subject to the Pi calculations as well?”

Great question! Yes they are, in certain circumstances. (Or should I say, in certain circumferences? Hahahahaha. Oh, man! Great math joke.)

Pizza pies fall under all the same Pi rules, unless they are one of those rectangular deep-dish pepperonis from Little Caesars. In that case you need square roots.

Chicken pot pies use the same calculations as regular pies, but Pi is always a smaller starting number if they are the little personal ones. Also, don’t let the crust temperature fool you. The inside is lava hot. Please don’t burn the roof of your mouth!

Shepherd’s Pie is where we fall into a gray area, mostly because no one is exactly sure what it is.

Why is Pie Day on 3/14? No one knows for sure. It’s just one of those made-up holidays and they needed to pick a date. Why was Blaze Pizza selling two-topping pizza pies for only $3.14 yesterday? Again, we don’t really know, other than the price corresponding to the date. We guess that was the reason.

The only thing we know for sure: The line at Blaze Pizza was much too long, and definitely not worth the difference between the regular price and $3.14, no matter how big the starting Pi number is for one of those bad boys. Oh, well.

Again, glad to help clear things up. Enjoy that pie!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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You Can't Spell Doughnuts with an E

I am here today to help set your mind at ease about our elementary school educational system. The kids are going to be fine.

I know there has been a lot of concern lately about Common Core, mostly centered around the fact that we parents no longer understand the new math, so we can no longer help our children with their homework. I personally fail to see why me getting out of homework time is a bad thing, but to each their own.

I will admit, however, I heard some disturbing things at Back to School Night. Four instants, I herd that hour children our know longer re choired two take spelling tests, cents they will all ways have spell Czech. That’s probably knot a grate idea, cents their our know red lines under any words in this pair a graph, butt its chalk full of miss steaks, May king IT con fusing and hard too reed.

I was also told that the new math program doesn’t focus so much on getting the right answer these days, but more on the students’ ability to collaborate in a group. I find that utterly offensive. Why are my children being offered this insanely awesome math utopia and I was not? I would have loved that system!

I used to collaborate all the time with my fellow students during math, but my teachers always called it “cheating.” Now students are being asked to talk to each other, and graded on how well they do it? Come on! That’s just salt into my report card wounds. I could’ve had straight A’s with this new system.

We had to slave away at our desks by ourselves with no Google at our fingertips to help us solve for X. Now the kids can just pull out a phone, fire up the math solver app, take a picture of the problem, and email the answer to the teacher. Then, as long as they all cheerfully agree on which math solver app is the best, and someone in the group can articulate a half-coherent reason for wanting to know what X was in the first place, (or at least what an X looks like, lol), they all get an A in math.

Actually, they all get a B or a T in math. Apparently, traditional letter grades are really only useful when you want to know if a student knows the right answers. A, B, C, D, and F have been abandoned in favor of E, S, N and T, B, L.

When you get rid of the standard letter grades, it also apparently makes sense to get rid of report cards, too. We’ll now just get “progress reports” rating our child’s development of the “characteristics of a successful learner” with either an E (excellent), an S (satisfactory), or an N (needs improvement).

As far as the individual subjects go, they’ll be rated with T, B, or L. The T stands for “progressing Toward meeting standard expectations in the reportable area.” The B definition, on the other hand, also has the word “toward” in it, but means “progressing toward Basic understanding in the reportable area.” That made me wonder why the T wasn’t an S, until I remembered that S means my child has developed “satisfactory characteristics of a successful learner.” Maybe the T should be an M? Who knows? Anyway, the L stands for “demonstrating Limited progress toward basic understanding and proficiency in the reportable area.” I personally think the L should just be replaced with a thumbs down emoticon, but they didn’t ask my opinion.

I don’t have the energy to begin to pretend like I understand any of it, but I do see one glaringly obvious problem with the new grade reporting system right off the bat – doughnuts.

Krispy Kreme used to give me one doughnut for every A on my kids’ report cards. Sometimes I would even let the kids have one of them. And I don’t like to brag, but between their mom’s brains and my height, they’re all pretty smart. Up until now, I would get A LOT of doughnuts at report card time.

But this new system has the potential to completely derail my gravy train of delicious glazed goodness. How the hell am I supposed to get free doughnuts with a “progress report” full of T’s?

Is all of this concerning? Of course. Has anything I’ve shared with you put you at ease? Of course not. The doughnut issue alone should have you feeling sick to your stomach - much like the day after report card doughnut day.

But don’t despair! The news from the classroom may be bleak, but there is still hope. The news from the playground is an entirely different story. The news from the playground will lift your spirits and set your mind at ease. The kids are going to be all right. How do I know? Four Square. That’s how.

Son Number One came home the other day and started telling me about playing Four Square. Like math, I foolishly thought I already knew all about it, but then he then started speaking another language, so I slowed him down and had him explain the new Four Square to me.

Back in my day, Four Square was just a game with four players in four squares and a bouncy ball that could only bounce in your square once before you were required to catch it. If it bounced twice, you were out. Like ABC or 123, plain and simple.

Four Square today is an entirely different animal. I had my son explain all the different rules to me. After a half-hour of nonstop machine gun-like information, I had to stop him, because my head was spinning.

The four squares are now named. They are King, Queen, Servant, and Jail. The king always starts with the ball. There is still what’s known as “regular” rules, where the one bounce applies. However, now there are approximately a thousand variants.

Tennis; Around the World, the more confusing, Reverse Around the World, and the incredibly difficult variant, Around the World Headers; Pac Man; Bus Stop; Back Stop; Edges, which may or may not be the same thing as Bus Stop; Apple Cider, and the more difficult Apple Cider variant, Poisonous Spider; Story Time; Watermelon; Out of the Box; Glass Ball; Cherry Bomb; Ghost in the Halls, and the confusing variant, Ghost in the Halls Touch Up; and the list just kept going, each with an intricate set of rules and regulations, many of which didn’t even involve the ball.

It was mind boggling. When I was his age we could all barely agree on the rules for a simple game of Red Rover. These kids are way more inventive than we were, and way smarter, too. They may or May knot no how to spell, but they’re going to be fine.

I’m a pretty decent speller, but I would get an F in Four Square today. Or an N. Or an L. I’m not sure.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to draft a letter to the president of Krispy Kreme explaining the new grading system.

Can someone please explain it to me, first?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

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Back to School Date Night

It’s that time of year again! Tomorrow is Back to School Date Night.

Many of you might know it simply as Back to School Night, or BTSN if you’re a hip elementary school insider, but not around our house. BTSN is the biggest date night of the year. Last year we went to Home Depot. It was amazing!

Those of you without kids are probably thinking, “Home Depot? What is he talking about? That’s not a date, that’s an errand. What about going out to a club and staying up until three in the morning?”

No, no, no. Don’t be silly, you crazy youths. Once you have children, “date night” takes on a whole new meaning. When you have kids, a date is anything you can do together without the kids.

You see, the thing you don’t fully comprehend before you have kids is the amount of time you are required to spend with them. Someone has to actually be with them for all of the minutes of all of the days, or else they will pour Comet in the fish bowl, eat a poisonous snail, and then burn the house down. And that’s just the teenagers. Little kids are much worse.

So all of a sudden the ability to go anywhere without kids becomes the most precious commodity in the world. If you ever see an adult just wandering around in a grocery store without a cart or a basket, chances are they are an escaped parent. They have come to the store just to marvel at all the products they actually could notice and buy if they weren’t constantly yelling at someone to drop the box of Froot Loops and climb down off of the banana display.

Now, the reason that BTSN is a big date night at our house is because it’s one of the only nights of the year when we are forced to get a babysitter. Babysitters cost money, therefore we don’t hire one very often.

Children are not allowed to attend BTSN, and since we have three kids, we have three classes to visit. One parent cannot attend while the other stays home with the kids. Two parents aren’t even enough to cover it, really.

Since there are only two of us, every year before BTSN we are forced to choose which child we will ignore. Fortunately for Son Number One’s education, he is never left out. Being the oldest, he is always entering a grade that is new to all of us, so we must visit his classroom and get the important information from his new teacher, like if math will be taught with actual numbers this year, or if we’re sticking with the “new math” from last year that involved a lot of stories about Simone and Raul and grouping their colored balloons into different columns.

So the decision is always between Son Number Two and Three. Which one’s classroom will we visit, and which one will be summarily ignored for the entire school year? All three of them are very smart (which has led me to question their mother extensively, but she insists that they really are my children), so needing to have our finger on the pulse of their education is not super-critical. Usually we just flip a coin.

Whichever way that coin lands, I’m excited about date night tomorrow night. I know we’ll go to the grocery store and wander around holding hands, but if we have time, we might even get to go to Kohl’s and look at shirts. Who knows?

The BTSN activities are always fun as well. I can’t wait to see what Simone and Raul are up to this year. Our babysitter had better be on time, though, or I might not be able to help the boys with their homework. I mean, I can figure out 354 x 98 the old-fashioned way, but with the new math, I need to be retrained every year on which column to put the goldfish in.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!