Today my students were working on a daily math review, and there was a question about what the commutative property was. I didn't learn what that was until I was 16, so I didn't expect them to know the answer, and they didn't. Personally, I can never remember the difference between commutative and associative properties, and so I went to my computer while they were working on the problems and googled it. As I was doing this, one of my kids came up to ask how to do the commutative property problem. As he asked, he looked at my screen, and I just imagined he was putting 2 and 2 together to see that I was looking up something I was about to try and teach them!! (I don't know that's what he was thinking, but it wouldn't be altogether surprising.) I told him to skip the problem and go back to his seat :-) So, I continued googling, found my answer in the expected 5 seconds or less, and went on to explain to the class what it was. I'm not really sure that this qualifies as good teaching, but it least gave me an answer to tell them :-) Lesson learned? When in doubt, Google it!
[By the way, in case you were wondering what the commutative property is, it is the rule that states that 6 + 3 = 3 + 6.]
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