Poor Pythagoras....

Now, I could update on how things are going.... or what's been going on... or how many decisions I have, which I don't know how to make nor want to make. But, I'm not. Here is to my 7th graders....they are a great group of kids and it has been a joy to have them in my class.

Now, we have started studying triangles, really right triangles. And so, we have come to the pythagorean theorem, and the sides of the triangle, known as the legs and the hypotenuse. Now I have been saying these words for a while now, but I know that they look funny and can kind of be hard or funny to say at times. And I have 10th graders that don't say pythagorean correctly.

So today, one of my students went to say "hypotenuse" and in came out more like "hypotentuse" with probably a couple extra other consonants in it. And well my whole class started giggling about it, and so was the boy who said it, since he realized that he didn't say it correctly. Well then someone else went to say "pythagorean" and it was also completely butchered. So, I went through how to say these words.

My students then asked where did all these long names come from in math and why couldn't they come up with something simple. Good question! I mean I didn't make it up! But I then proceeded to tell them (because I am sure they really wanted to know) that the pythagorean theorem is named after a guy named Pythagoras.

Well then, one of my boys quietly pipes up (as in only half the room heard), "I bet he was made fun of in school" And that whole side of my class started laughing. Well, I know that Pythagoras was not alone in what we would call "odd" names, but to a 7th grader. You sure wouldn't want to be named Pythagoras... oh poor pythagoras.