Twosday (Days 113-???)

Today is Tuesday -- a very special day on the calendar, for two reasons. Indeed, my second semester blogging schedule doesn't have me posting on Tuesdays, but I am posting on this very special Tuesday.

The first reason today is special is that it's the day after Presidents' Day, and thus the start of what I normally call the "Big March." It represents the long stretch between Presidents' Day and Easter when there are no days off from school -- after having had a day off every few weeks since Veteran's Day.

But spring break in my current district has nothing to do with Easter. Indeed, both my current and old districts in LA County take the same week off in late March. (I observed spring break on my old blog, but when the pandemic resulted in 100% distance learning in that district around March in both 2020 and 2021, the blog calendar switched to different districts.)

Moreover, 2022 is the year when Presidents' Day falls back from its earliest date (the 15th) to its latest (the 21st) -- while spring break stays the same (the first full week after the spring equinox). Thus instead of five weeks, it's only four weeks until spring break -- which doesn't make it much of a "Big March." (In fact, it's the same length as the stretch from MLK Day to Lincoln Day -- as opposed to an unusually stretch without holidays.) Thus it's not a "Big March," but more like a "Little March."

I've had some tough Big Marches in the past -- including back at the old charter school, when I didn't even survive the Big March. That year, I took a blogging break during the "Big March" -- and I told myself that the next time I had a full-time teaching job, I'd take a similar blogging break. Little did I know that once I finally got this position, my school would observe a "Little March" instead of a "Big March." I'll reveal at the end of this post what my Little March blogging schedule will be.

The second reason today is special is that another Palindrome Week is upon us. This year's Palindrome Week runs from February 20th to the end of the month -- from 2/20/22 to 2/28/22, a stretch of all palindromes in the m/dd/yy format. The first of these dates, namely 2/20/2022, is also a longer palindrome in the m/dd/yyyy format. But that was a Sunday, and yesterday was Presidents' Day. Thus today is the first day of this Palindrome Week on which teachers and students see the inside of a classroom.

But this month, there are also palindromes in European date-first formats as well. Six years ago, Ron Gordon, the founder of Square Root Day (as in 4/4/16), also mentioned the Palindrome Day, 2/2/22. He named this date Trumpet Day after the sound of a tooting trumpet:

http://trumpetday.net/

Trumpet Day is a palindrome in the European format d/m/yy (as well as m/d/yy, of course). And as a repdigit (repeated digit) date, I expected it to attract more attention than Square Root Day. I just had to wait out the six long years until Trumpet Day arrived.

But notice that today isn't 2/2/22, but 2/22/22 -- another repdigit day. Today is a palindrome in two European formats -- 22/2/22 (dd/m/yy) and 22/02/2022 (dd/mm/yyyy), as well as the American format m/dd/yy (like the rest of this week's palindromes).

When I was counting down to 2/22/22, I was thinking that today was Trumpet Day -- until I clicked on Ron Gordon's page a few days ago and saw that Trumpet Day had already passed. Gordon tells us that he prefers 2/2/22 to 2/22/22 because trumpet music is usually written in 4/4 time, not 5/4. So it makes more sense to let Trumpet Day have four twos, not five.

In fact, today's 2/22/22 has received more attention than Gordon's original Trumpet Day -- not only because there's a fifth two in the date, but there's also a sixth two, because today is Tuesday. Thus this special day has also received the name Twosday.

Note: Some people wonder whether it's possible to add a seventh two to the mix, and have 2/22/2222 fall on a Tuesday. Sadly, that date will be a Friday. Since the Gregorian Calendar repeats every 400 years, it follows that 2/22/2422 will be a Tuesday, so that's the next true "Twosday."

(By the way, a girl I once met in kindergarten got married on 7/7/07, while another girl I met in kindergarten actually gave birth on 11/11/11.)

On the MTBoS, Sarah Carter is definitely observing Twosday. She has posted a Twosday Challenge Activity, following her 2's to 9's and 2022 activities:

https://mathequalslove.net/twosday-challenge-activity/

She posted this worksheet about a month ago -- which is the main reason why I forgot about Gordon's Trumpet Day and prepared for her Twosday.

Like most Tuesdays, today is odd periods -- third period Calculus and fifth period Trig. And I assign Carter's Twosday worksheet to both classes.

In Calculus, I give the worksheet as Assignment #22 -- another pair of twos on this Twosday, a coincidence that almost didn't work out. Last Thursday, I wanted to give Assignment #21 out of the book and Assignment #22 on AP Classroom, but I messed up the online assignment. So I only had one assignment that day, and that allowed me to give Carter's 22222 worksheet as Assignment #22. The students work on this as I play Michael Starbird Lecture 4 (uh, Lecture 2 + 2 = 2 * 2) on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, leading up to today's Section 5.4, also on FTC. In addition, I give Assignment #23 on DeltaMath, in preparation for this week's Quiz #5.

In fifth period Trig, the students take a quiz on Section 2.2 (look -- more twos!) before starting Section 2.3, on solving right triangles. Then I gave them Carter's 22222 worksheet at exactly 2:22. Of the three students in this class, one guy finishes it at 2:28 and the other at 2:32, but the lone girl in the class struggles with it longer. At 2:43, I notice that she has most of them correct (except for 12 -- she leaves out the parentheses) and is mainly second-guessing herself. In all classes, I give my students some candy for doing the worksheet, a special candy only befitting of Twosday -- Twix.

Today might be all about the twos, but it's actually Sevenday on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #7: We earn our grades through hard work and determination.

Trig class follows this resolution today when taking the quiz, and Calculus class does the same as it prepares for its upcoming quiz on Thursday.

Our school has a block schedule, so not all of my math classes meet on Tuesdays. I won't see my Ethnostats students Twosday worksheet tomorrow. No, it won't be Assignment #22, since I just have #13 last week for the 13th movie project. But recall from my last post that due to Google Slides not working, we ended up doing that project in our Stats Scrapbooks -- on page 21. And you know what that means -- the students will complete the 22222 worksheet on page 22 of their notebooks.

Notice that instead of doing so tomorrow, I could have given my Wednesday kids the Twosday worksheet three weeks ago -- on Trumpet Day. But that would have been sad in fourth period -- recall that 2/2/22 was the day I received my positive COVID test and never made it to fourth period.

There is one major issue at school today -- more Wi-Fi problems, but this time it's not just my classroom, but throughout the entire district. Fortunately, I have the foresight to print the Twosday worksheet at home before school this morning. I could have very easily decided to wait until arriving at school to print it from Carter's website, only to have the Internet not work. So as tough as it is not to have Wi-Fi, this Twosday very easily could have been worse.

But it also could have been better. Our school is so small that we have only one administrator -- when our principal is out, the most senior teacher is in charge. This happens to be the other math teacher (my partner teacher), who today must serve as the de facto assistant principal. She must spend the entire day in the office -- and so her own math classes are covered by a sub. Today she leaves a Desmos assignment for her Integrated Math III classes -- which they can't do since there's no Internet. After school, I ask my partner teacher what her classes are doing today -- and her answer is "Nothing."

If only I'd realized what was going on, I very easily could have burned off a few extra copies of Carter's 22222 worksheet and handed that to the sub. I have no first period, so I can make the copies during that period and give them for first and third periods. Fifth period Precalculus takes a quiz today (on paper, just like my own fifth period class), but most of them finish the quiz by the middle of the period -- around 2:22 or thereabouts. So they might also have completed the worksheet as well.

Both the sub and my partner teacher could have hailed me as a Twosday hero. But alas, I don't even inquire about the next door class until after school, by which time it's too late to hand out the papers.

Once again, I'm not singing songs these days. If I were still singing, today I probably would have performed the Square One TV's "Palindrome Song" all week in honor of Palindrome Week. It would not have been "The Big March Song" since there's only a "Little March" in this district.

Ah yes, I must decide my blogging schedule for this year's Little March. On one hand, since it's only a Little March, it shouldn't be so much of a struggle to make it to spring break. On the other hand, there is one tragic event that could happen during the Little March -- a pink slip. The fate of my school and us teachers won't be known until April, yet pink slips are legally required to be sent out March 15th. My partner teacher is expecting every teacher to be given a pink slip during the Little March (even herself, the de facto "assistant principal").

At any rate, I will skip posting during the Little March, since it's not as if my blog (or blogs in general) gets much traffic these days. I will post only on special days, including the monthly minimum day (which is still scheduled for Pi Day!) as well as a potential Open House date in March.