More Taxing Lessons

Today, I continued teaching about income taxes, but kicked it up a notch. Yesterday, I showed them the basic 1040EZ for persons who were the dependant of someone else. Today I showed them how to handle individuals who were not able to be the dependant of someone else, but added the new "Making Work Pay" tax credit. It is such an easy calculation on the back of the EZ form, but the explanation is sooo obtuse.

Tomorrow, we begin the 1040A . . .

Also, for the past few days, I have had an observer in my most challenging class. Fortunately, my little darlings have behaved. The observer is a grad student at a local college, who thinks he wants to be a business teacher. He takes some notes and doesn't say too much. It's kinda funny to see someone who is just starting out as I am winding down my career.

I wonder what he is thinking about what he sees in our classes. I remember observing the old timers when I was just starting out. Though we didn't have to do nearly as much observing as current students need to do. Of course, when I was observing I was observing teachers who had started teaching as early as the forties. Education, of course, was a different world then. So much rote memorization then, and no technology. Even when I started in 1977, I couldn't even imagine what technology we would eventually have. Our building didn't have a single computer, we even sent out the attendance information by courier at the end of each day. We thought we were so sophisticated having IBM Selectric typewriters! What a modern age it was!