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Period 1 Geometry
Period 2 Prep
Period 3 Geometry
Period 4 Geometry
Period 5 Geometry
Period 6 Geometry H
Please email me for any questions at robert.brenneman@sausd.us
Brenneman Course Expectations:
My goals are for students to learn teamwork, CPM team roles, gain mastery of the Geometry Standards, and complete their a-g requirements successfully.
Another of my goals is to have more fun in class than the year previous. And why not? We're all in this together, so let's have fun while doing great work!
GFHS has many expectations for students to keep in mind in order to achieve success. School wide policies will be strictly adhered to such as: dress code policy, homework, etc. See GFHS handbook.
1. Be prompt: I expect you to be in class on time. This means to be at your desk writing HW into your agenda when the tardy bell rings.
2. Be prepared: Arrive to class with materials daily and homework completed to the best of your ability and best effort. Expect to have 30-45 minutes of Geometry homework daily. I give homework on weekends because I believe that it will help you.
3. You are expected to be courteous and respectful. I'm nice, so you be nice.
4. MUST BRING TO CLASS:
- Graph paper. ***Purchase extra now to use during the year.
- This is a calculator class! It should be a Scientific Calculator with sin/cos/tan buttons. (A TI-34 is nice)
- Pencils! All work will be done in pencil only.
- Colored ballpoint pen for correcting your homework in class.
- Purchase a compass & protractor for use at home for homework.
- Your Toolkits stay in your binder for use on Individual tests. (Aren't I nice to let you do that?!!!) You should already have a 3 ring binder with a labeled Geometry section.
- NO bags, backpacks, or purses on desks or laps.
- No second chances for cell personal texting/phone use. Phones will be taken to the office!
5. Tools for homework success:
- Attend the school wide tutoring program. I am available Monday after school (by appointment), and every Tuesday after school. Other days are also available by scheduling one with me in person!
- Call or email a friend from class when at home help is needed.
- Take the time to communicate to me about your needs. I'm nice. (see above)
- Go to the library and/or have a quiet place at home to work/study without electronic distractions.
B r e n n e m a n F u n F a c t s :1. I used to be a rock star. You can still hear my college band on iTunes. ("Neptune Thomas")
2. My wife (Jasmine) and I have two children: Keller (age 7), and Jonas (age 3).
3. Don't ever play Tetris. (see below for more details and a touching, personal story)
Ok, about the Tetris...
I remember this day back in 1990 when I bought a Nintendo and played TETRIS for 12 straight hours. At the end of the marathon session, I picked my sore rear up off the floor and felt utterly feeble. I was irritated, my skin looked pale (or at least more than usual), but worst of all was the realization that for the last 12 hours, people around the world had been living their lives, doing real and productive things, and I had unwittingly become one of Satan's cheerleaders - a sad participant in one of his nasty ploys.
I will never get that 12 hours of my life back again. To think of the things I could have done... I could have decorated a cake, set up a window display on home safety, been a role model to hundreds of local children by volunteering as a crossing guard (free vest), or I could have been the guy who glues all those sesame seeds onto the hamburger buns at the bun factory. But NO.
I didn't do any of that, instead, I opted to spend 12 hours of my life in the pursuit of the manipulation of fake electronic bricks that pile up and pile up to no discernible effect. What a nasty, unattractive loser I had become.
However, I now realize that the Nintendo Corporation is not to blame for my former Tetris addiction.
I blame the Soviet Union.
I'll get right to the point: In the late 1980's, Russia was at the brink of losing its 40-year Cold War with the United States. I contend that the Russians, in a last ditch effort to win the Cold War by subverting and numbing our nations youth, devised a nefarious plan to import this game, otherwise known as TETRIS, to America in the late 1980s. Unconvinced? Witness then the little Russian dancing man on the arcade version of TETRIS that continue, despite its waning popularity, to infect many game systems across America. The little man, dressed in traditional patriotic SOVIET garb, dancing and twisting around the screen - MOCKING the player in their ignorance and stupidity while they continue to squander their precious time.
The point. The point here has been not only to prove to you that I am, indeed, a geek on wheels (though I have surely succeeded in that), but to plead that our time truly is VALUABLE! Every second counts! Soon, we'll all wonder where all of our time went, asking ourselves: what would I have done differently?
But if you ask yourself that question now - you can do what you would have wanted to change! ...unless you said that you wanted to change the fact that you asked that question way back when you didn't know what it was yet. I think you get the picture.