The last book I had read was The Martian, by Andy Weir, and while I liked the movie very much, I loved the book even more. Andy Weir is not afraid to get nerdy and lay out some serious math and I’m here for it. While I started thinking about reading a book by another favorite author, Scott Turow, some of my friends urged me to read another Weir book, Project Hail Mary, and I am so glad I did. I was warned to avoid the spoilers in the movie trailer that is out now, and I’m relieved that I did so. Because Project Hail Mary unfolds like a flower. It begins with the Amnesiac Hero trope, but it serves the book well as the protagonist’s (no, I’m not even going to tell you his name) story is told in parallel, with a series of flashbacks filling in the gaps as his memory returns…slowly.
I honestly can’t tell you too much about this book without spoiling it. But I will say this: If you liked The Martian, you will love Project Hail Mary. I love the problem solving, the humanity of the protagonist, flawed though he may be, and a satisfying conclusion that didn’t feel rushed, a trait that is more and more common these days. Oh, and the audiobook reader, Ray Porter? He kills it. Great job.
Three days preparing for students to start school. Three days.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? It isn’t. I’m just glad I went in last week to get started because I’m still not done. On Monday, all one thousand or so of us teachers congregated in the auditorium at the high school and listened to the superintendent talk for two hours. Well, I assume someone listened to him. I didn’t. I tried to listen but he couldn’t figure out how to talk into the microphone he clipped on. He walked around, gesticulated a lot, and from his tone, I think he was excited. But I couldn’t make out much of what he said. Everyone who spoke into the microphone at the podium were crystal clear. Unfortunately, that portion of the program was only about 20 minutes.
After catching a ride with my principal back to my school ( I hitched a ride there with my friend and neighbor Amber) I ate my lunch and had a whole 30 minutes to continue to unpack and situate my room, before–aw, you guessed. A staff meeting.Two and a half hours of presentation and information overload. After 90 minutes, it was all just bouncing off. Fortunately they gave us all a digital copy of the presentation with links to the important documents. The hard wooden furniture in B128 used to be in the library. I recognized it right away. It did quite a number on my back after two and a half hours. The library, on the other hand, has some nice, comfortable chairs. Probably not enough to seat the entire staff, though. At the end of the meeting, I got to see one of my old students who is now an assistant principal. That doesnt’ seem quite possible, but there you go.
By the end of the meeting, I had about an hour to work in my classroom. I was beat.
On the second day, we began with–aw, come on, you’re too good at this game–a meeting. A training, really, in how to use our new textbooks. The school system hasn’t adopted a math text in, let me count here, 16 years. But now we are using RevealMath, which includes both consumables and digital content. They are allegedly aligned with Indiana standards, but my very first search proved that wrong. Prime factorization is kind of my thing. My entire Solution Squad book starts out with prime numbers, then moves on to prime factorization, then solving proportions with simplifying ratios, which is done with prime factorization. It’s incredibly useful. Well, in Indiana, it’s a 7th grade standard, but it was nowhere to be found in the textbook that we are being given. It’s part of the 6th grade course. And we were told that we were only allowed access to the coursework that we actually teach, so the 6th grade book is not available to me, as I teach 7th and 8th grade. Now, you might think that something like that would upset me, but it does not. That just means I get to use my Solution Squad materials! It’s actually cause for celebration. What did make me a little angry, though, is that the filter I applied for my search was by Indiana standard, and lo and behold, it’s the old standards, not the 2023 ones. For a big company like McGraw-Hill, that’s just lame. At least I got some time in my rom after lunch.
The third day began with–no, you really don’t have to guess–a meeting. We had a math department meeting to talk about scope and sequence, distribution of the new books (which hadn’t even arrived yet), and who was teaching what courses. It was necessary to have, but holy moley, so many meetings. I would love to say that I spent the rest of the day preparing, but the books came in around lunchtime, and after I devoured my steak burriito and Mexican Coke from Ricky’s Taqueria (the best little hole in the wall in all of Elkhart), I hauled 200 books in two loads on my cart up from the library. I got all four bulletin boards done, but there’s a pile of totes in my room that have nowhere to go.
I probably should mention that there is not one cubic inch of storage available in my classroom. The teacher who had my room last year passed away from cancer, toward the end of the year, and all of her stuff is still in the cabinets. They’re still trying to figure out what to do with all of it. In the meantime, I’ll just stack my totes in a corner.
I would normally have been done with everything by now, but with all the heavy physical stuff, my back was warning me to slow down and take breaks. Getting older sometimes isn’t that much fun.
The kids are coming today, and I can’t wait to meet them!
The rest of my life. It’s such an odd phrase. But having turned 60 years old, I have to really start considering that what time I have left is limited. My dad died at 65, my mom at 72; both had cancer. Three of my 4 grandparents had cancer. One died at 53 two at 69, and one at 85. Just looking at the math, I may not have a whole lot of time left. So how do I use it? Retirement didn’t stick. I was bored silly. I was so bored, that one month, I wrote a novel. 60,000 words in a month. And I was still bored. Every morning I would do all the puzzles that the New York Times had to offer then I would write all day. It still didn’t give me the mental stimulation that I needed.
Since going back to teaching full time I have found the stimulation that I was looking for. Last year, however, was not ideal. I was teaching students who had failed algebra up to five times. They were not exactly inspired to learn. My ego told me I could make a difference in their lives and for a very few I was successful. But it was frustrating beyond words to meet such resistance from students who didn’t feel they could improve their lives. When the opportunity came to return to teaching middle school I jumped at it. I am a middle school teacher. Have been given the chance to return to Pierre Moran Middle School, well that was just icing on the cake.
I never stopped learning new things. That’s one of the things I can be proud of in my life. In trying to develop a yearlong escape room, more or less. I’ve found tools that have helped me immensely in being productive: ChatGPT and Canva. If I had had these tools while I was working on Solution Squad, my life would have been so much easier. The ability to create learning materials based on my comic stories has been made incredibly easier. I can now produce posters worksheets buttons everything at the touch of a button using Canva. ChatGPT helps me to align my work with Indiana math standards which have changed in the past two years. Who knows why they keep changing things the way they do? But they do and I just have to play along.
One of the mistakes I made when working on Solution Squad was thinking that all math teachers had the same ability that I do to be able to find math in every single instance of any subject. It was such a niche project that the crossover between math teachers and comic book lovers was too small to make it financially viable. So, I’m not trying to do that anymore. The work that I’m doing now is purely for my benefit. People may admire my creativity but I’m not doing it for the masses or to make money. I’m doing it for me. I want to see if I can be the quality teacher that I was 10 years ago.
My wife often says that I have to have a project. I always have to have something long term that I’m working on to keep myself occupied. Now that I have the tools available to me that I wish I’d always had, I’m going to make the class the best I possibly can. I’m going to use graphic novels, comic books, and popular culture and I’m going to make a math class that kids will remember.
The big question is, how long can I keep this up? If I enjoy it? Indefinitely. In seven years, I can collect Social Security at my full retirement age I don’t feel like my health will stop me but possibly my hearing will be the issue. I already have trouble hearing people in conversation and have to read lips in addition to having hearing aids, so I guess I’ll let that determine when I’m done. But I would honestly enjoy teaching for the rest of my life if the kids match my creative energy like the middle school kids in my past did.
I’m returning after a 10-year absence to Pierre Moran Middle School in Elkhart Indiana. I’ll be teaching 7th grade and possibly an eighth grade class and I’m really looking forward to being back with 12, 13, and 14-year olds that’s really where I belong. I’ll be honest I really haven’t felt like much of a teacher in the 10 years since I was pulled from Pierre Moran mid-year to join the staff at Northside Middle School completely against my will. I had spent 18 1/2 years at Pierre Moran and I had already had the children of some of my children. I was part of the community. I was a leader. I had been on virtually every committee that the school had and chaired most of them at one time or another. The hows and whys of it don’t matter anymore; the important thing is that I’m back.
You wouldn’t think that at age 60 that I had anything to prove. But I do–to myself. When I left Pierre Moran 10 years ago I was at the top of my game. I was the best teacher I had ever been. Everything was rolling in the right direction and it’s never been the same since. I want to see if I can get back to that level of expertise and skill and I want to do more. I want to be the example that other people follow. With that in mind I came up with a crazy idea to create a fictional school within a school a superhero school if you will and the students in my classes will be superheroes in training. Using ChatGPT to provide graphics and Canva to provide the ability to present, I’m going to introduce my students a new way of immersing in a fictional world while learning math at the same time. I’m not sure it’s ever been done before but I’m going to do it. Here’s my first presentation.
I know, it’s incredibly controversial. My artist friends have been up in arms for a few years now over AI. It’s robbing them of their livelihoods, and they are right to worry so.
Confession: I stopped drawing two years ago because of it. I’m truly a frustrated artist. I knew a long time ago that I would never be as good as I wanted to be. I saw the writing on the wall that it would quickly surpass anything I could do. And I was right.
I’ve seen the arguments. It takes money out of the hands of artists. There’s no skill to it. If you use it, your ability to do the things that it does will erode. Well, that’s okay. What I’ve discovered so far puts the lie to that. A month of so back, my gaming buddies and I were chatting about its use. I was about to start running a new Star Trek Adventures game, we were starting all new characters. Just for fun, I thought, let’s see what 1966 Charlton Heston would look like in a Star Trek Uniform. I have to tell you, it didn’t do a bad job. Now, was this something I was likely to commission from an artist friend. No. No way ever.
Now, I quickly discovered that ChatGPT does not like to do the correct insignia on its Star Trek renderings, so I used my skills with Photoshop to Clone tool away the patch on his shirt and replace it with a photograph of the actual command insignia. Since I didn’t ask for a background I was free to place him wherever I wanted him.
I put him in front of a control console on my starship, the USS Nautilus, and interior set that I paid a whole lot for. Now, I don’t want to hang this photo up. I just needed it for NPC reference in a game. And if ChatGPT can give it to me and I can complete it in 15 minutes, then sign me up.
I used it to create backgrounds for my two Bill Krause-designed Challenger-class starships. This is also something I would never pay anyone to do. And I paid $400 for my two digital models, thank you very much.
USS Nautilus approaches a tropical planet
So, yeah, while I’m using it for art, I am still paying artists for their work, but where else am I going to find a thousand backgrounds to put my ships on to my specifications?
The real kicker though, came when I was in a professional development meeting on June 6. We were learning how to make our home pages in Canvas and I asked the tech person how to word wrap around my photo image in my introduction. She quickly said, “Canvas doesn’t do that. But we can have ChatGPT write the HTML code for doing it and use its HTML editor to make that happen. And we did just that. Everyone, I have no intention of learning how to code HTML. This was a great tool to use and it never even occurred to me to use it for anything but playing around with photos and Star Trek stuff.
Then when someone suggested writing test questions with it, I had to admit, I didn’t know it could do that. But oh, yes. Here’s what I gave it:
Write a multiple choice question using Indiana Academic Standard 7.RP.2 with a Star Trek Original Series theme.
ChatGPT said:
Sure! Here’s a multiple choice question aligned with Indiana Academic Standard 7.RP.2 (Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities), with a Star Trek: The Original Series theme:
Indiana Academic Standard 7.RP.2 – Multiple Choice Question Theme: Star Trek – The Original Series
While exploring a distant planet, Captain Kirk notes that the amount of dilithium crystals mined is proportional to the time spent mining. In one mission, 15 kilograms of dilithium were mined in 3 hours.
If the crew continues mining at the same rate, how many kilograms of dilithium can they expect to mine in 8 hours?
A) 35 kg B) 40 kg C) 45 kg D) 50 kg
Correct Answer: B) 40 kg (Explanation: 15 kg / 3 hr = 5 kg/hr. 5 kg/hr × 8 hr = 40 kg)
Now, I don’t know about you, but my day is made. BUT–Is Captain Kirk really the right one to note the speed at which dilithium crystals are being mined? No. That’s where my brain kicks in. No, it would be Scotty. So, I will make the adustment.
While exploring a distant planet, Chief Engineer Scott notes that the amount of dilithium crystals mined is proportional to the time spent mining. In one mission, 15 kilograms of dilithium were mined in 3 hours.
If the crew continues mining at the same rate, how many kilograms of dilithium can they expect to mine in 8 hours?
A) 35 kg B) 40 kg C) 45 kg D) 50 kg
Now I have a decent question, and it took a fraction of the time it would have taken me to come up with something similar.
So, will my art skills atrophe? I don’t honestly care. I’m not doing this for money anymore. I’m more interested in making my workflow more efficient. My other skills, like using Photoshop, are getting a real workout. Especially when I want to see what Alan Rickman would look like as a Vulcan doctor. I fixed the insignia, the eyebrows, and I placed him in another set that I paid to have designed.
I know, all of my artist friends are dead set against it. I don’t blame any of you. But how AI is going to help me is immeasurable. I don’t care about six-fingered hands. What I do care about are things like I did yesterday. “Write a diagnostic multiple choice quiz with four questions from each of the five domains of the 6th grade Indiana math standards.”
Done.
I looked it over and it was solid work. If there were any poorly worded questions or questions that didn’t measure what I wanted to know, I could tweak them, but I didn’t need to.
“Write the quiz in Spanish.”
Done.
Then ChatGPT asked me if I wanted a printable PDF or if I wanted it in digital format. I chose digital format. Then I asked to make it for Canvas. It not only put the quizzes into digital format, but also gave me step-by-step instructions on how to upload it directly into my Canvas course.
So, in less than ten minutes, I had quizzes in Engish and Spanish uploaded into Canvas and ready to be assigned. Care to guess how long all of that would have taken me to do manually? Especially the translation? Hours.
Now, the debate can begin. Is it fair to rely on AI to do our jobs? Of course not. But I am a trained professional wth 38 years of classroom experience. I know good questions from bad ones. I also know if something is built to tell me what I need to know or not. I don’t rely on AI to do everything. I am going to use it to do the grunt work that I could pay an assistant to do.
I used it recently to write Ebay descriptions for comics and action figures that I put up to sell. I had to be very descriptive in my prompts. And I am going to say this, and you can argue with me all day long. It is an art form (and maybe a science) to construct a prompt to make the AI do what you want it to do. I have had many false starts because I wasn’t precise enough in my language when creating prompts. I’ve gotten a lot better at it now that I understand what it does and does not do well.
Does anyone remember the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where Geordi gets tired of Data beating all the Sherlock Holmes mysteries on the holodeck and instructs the computer to create a unique Sherlock Holmes mystery with an adversary who is capable of defeating Data? This is how we got the Moriarty villain. You have to choose your words carefully.
But that’s not the only time that we’ve seen how AI works in our popular culture. When Tony Stark interacts wtih Jarvis or Friday in all the Iron Man and Avengers movies, that’s exactly what he’s doing. I recently had that same experience.
I started working on Heroes of STEAM again recently and uploaded the rules into ChatGPT. It gave me feedback on the gamel and how it was appropriate for the audience. I had the AI create two characters using my ruleset, and then had it simulated a battle between the two characters. It gave me a readout of the mock battle, all the moves, the damage done and the damage mitigated, and told me who the winner was. It even asked me if I wanted it to give the characters names. They weren’t bad, to be fair. I did note that it wasn’t having the characters move on the map at all. They just stod next to each other and slugged it out. I then added the strategy of moving to a distance where the character’s best attack would work. That generated an entirely different result. Then I had it create five characters and did a free-for-all fight. Last one standing wins. I ran that simulation ten times and found that the character whose main trait was mobility, the ability to dodge and move, was winning nearly every time. I asked ChatGPT how I could modify the stat to even things out a bit, and it gave me a potential solution. I made that change and reran the simulation ten times again. It changed, but now favored a different attribute.
I did this back-and-forth for about three hours, running hundreds of simulated battles using my rules. And now Heroes of STEAM is a much better product. The time and effort that it would have required to playtest hundreds of games was reduced to about 1% of what it would have been.
People can argue against AI all day long, but I’m going to tell you this; I’m not going back. It’s a whole new world now. It’s scary, but there’s no way this tool is going back in the box.
I remember when the first computer gradebook was released and my mentor teacher urged me to use it. It took me far longer to input the grades than it took me to calculate them mentally from my hand-written gradebook. I told him then that when the technology saves me time, I will start using it.
