So this week has been something of a challenge. Maybe a better word would be my worst nightmare come true. I have an English class for high school seniors called Fundamentals of English. I'm suppose to teach reading and writing for practical, day to day uses. Someone, not me, decided that the students need to learn how to balance a checkbook. "So do I," I thought. "But I've got the teacher's manual, so I can struggle through, maybe, if I really have to, and I guess if the students need it; I really have to." So we do the first entry together and I tell them to do the rest on their own. How hard can it be?
"Mark writes check 101 to Lacey's Department store $39.56 for sheets. Write the check and put it in the outgoing mailbox. Write the amount in the check register and calculate the balance. Get form 202 from the back of the documents and forms section of the work book and find Mark's paycheck from Antwan's Car Parts and endorse the check and fill out the deposit slip and put it in the outgoing mailbox; be sure to record the transaction in the check register. Mark needs dishes and writes check 102 to . . .. . . "
I was busy helping one of the students and didn't realized that none of them really knew what do to until they had already messed up their check registers until they looked like mine. Time for part deux of the nightmare. I haul out the whiteboard so that I can demonstrate for the whole class as we try to make sense of the checkbook register. I hate writing on the board in front of the class, the memory of a brave sixth grader's voice saying, "Ms. Taylor, we can't read your writing," is always in my ear when I write on the board, even though I have made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting. Chalkboards were bad enough. The dust was everywhere and your hands and clothes got covered with it. But whiteboards are worse. The markers have an odor that leaves me literaly speechless. It causes my throat to close up and if I have to write too long, I lose my voice altogether. Today wasn't too long so I had enough voice to say, "Good Job, Guys."
Thankfully, we all got our checkbook registers straighted out, looking nothing like the teacher's manual, but miraculously all balanced.
One of the students spoke the truth when she said, " I hate this. Debit cards are so much easier!"
1 comment:
Check book? What is that? I hand write maybe three checks a year. Everything else is debit or Discover. My cash back bonus on Discover since May of last year is over $160 of free money!
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