Just in case Scott's recent posts have gotten people down on the state of American youth today, I thought I would share my elation with my freshmen Geometry Honors students this year. (DISCLAIMER: This isn't to brag. I can't even imagine what Sarah's daily life is like, and I doubt I could handle it for as long as she has.) I just love what's going on in this Geometry Honors class. It's easily the best class I've ever taught.

I've assigned them a group project this week. (I never assign group projects. That tells you something about this class already.) I divided the 16 girls into 4 groups of 4, and assigned them 5 challenging questions, of which they (as a group) are to choose 4 to solve and write up. Each student must write up one of the four solutions. (I can send interested parties the PDF of the questions.)

To see these girls work together so well, bounce ideas off of each other, get a little frustrated when they get stuck, get so excited (high-fiving each other!) when they "unstuck" themselves... it's just awesome. I just had one girl--not one of the stronger students--have a breakthrough on one of the problems, and say "YES! YES! Ohmigosh, that was so exciting!" I mean... What more could a math teacher ask for?