Practise Your Maths

Since things are not quite as organized as planned at my school, we did not have parent/teacher conferences this October. Thank goodness. But, we did have to write student progress reports.

I normally do quite well with this ~ don't have very many errors with spelling or grammar.

Until I started being forced to speak like a Brit.

The British people have two spellings for practice.

• Practice - noun, verb, -ticed, -tic·ing.
  –noun
  1. habitual or customary performance; operation: office practice.
  2. habit; custom: It is not the practice here for men to wear long hair.
  3. repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency: Practice makes perfect.
  4. condition arrived at by experience or exercise: She refused to play the piano, because she was out of practice.
  5. the action or process of performing or doing something: to put a scheme into practice; the shameful practices of a blackmailer.
  6. the exercise or pursuit of a profession or occupation, esp. law or medicine: She plans to set up practice in her hometown.
  7. the business of a professional person: The doctor wanted his daughter to take over his practice when he retired.
  8. Law. the established method of conducting legal proceedings.
  9. Archaic. plotting; intrigue; trickery.
  10. Usually, practices. Archaic. intrigues; plots. –verb (used with object)
  11. to perform or do habitually or usually: to practice a strict regimen.
  12. to follow or observe habitually or customarily: to practice one's religion.
  13. to exercise or pursue as a profession, art, or occupation: to practice law.
  14. to perform or do repeatedly in order to acquire skill or proficiency: to practice the violin.
  15. to train or drill (a person, animal, etc.) in something in order to give proficiency. –verb (used without object)
  16. to do something habitually or as a practice.
  17. to pursue a profession, esp. law or medicine.
  18. to exercise oneself by repeated performance in order to acquire skill: to practice at shooting.
  19. Archaic. to plot or conspire.
  
• Also, British, practise (for defs. 11–19).

Now, since I believe all my readers are from the U.S., you most likely agree with me that practice with an "s" is just practice misspelled.

One more thing that has bothered me since I came here is that the British teachers call math, "maths." I don't know why, or where it comes from. But, I cannot simply change my whole life of saying "math" to now saying "maths."

However, I have been advised that I do.

On a much nicer note, look what I get to see out of my classroom window each day:

Except for today because it's cold, foggy, and dark. Depressing. And, it's FREEZING in the building because for some reason, the air conditioning is running full-force.