About Science is wrong. I love to turn student’s worlds upside-down with that statement. I’ll give you some examples:
- There is no such thing as suction, there is only the absence of air. Its called a vacuum. Many students are heavily vested in this particular misconception, especially since it is such a part of our vernacular. Basically, atmospheric pressure is very, very strong! Check out the Madgeberg Spheres as an example of just how hard it will resist. Think of vector arrows pushing in on the spheres from all directions.
- There is no such thing as cold, only the absence of heat. Its called the Kinetic Theory of Gases. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the molecules of an object, whether its a gas or not.
Yes, its late. Yes, I’m tired. I’ll continue this list in another post. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading.
It was a day like any other day (except for the fact that it was Monday, but seemed like a Thursday since tomorrow is Tuesday, but is really Friday). I made it through 1st and 2nd block easily, but then 3rd block rolled around. Not that I have anything against 3rd block. Really. I don’t. But it started off with a very nasty habit many of the students in that block have: being polite. Yes, they are polite to a fault. I’ll try to explain.
Students are tardy if the they enter the classroom after the tardy bell rings. Makes sense, right? At Putnam City, all of the doors are kept locked when shut, therefore, students cannot enter the classroom late, unless someone opens the door for them. And therein lies the problem with their politeness. I’ll continue to explain. I usually stand at the door and close it just as the tardy bell rings. I then proceed to get students going on the bellwork or whatever other task I have for them to start class. This means I am not at the door and cannot see who comes in late to class. There is a sign on my door, which says “For entry, knock politely” which students read “To sneak in, knock quietly”. This is what usually happens. Students knock quietly and my students, being the polite human beings they are, open the door and return to their seat. Usually before I can see who is coming in tardy.
So there you have it, my students are annoyingly polite! This put me in a other than pleasant mood since it happened once, I addressed it, and then it happened twice more! We then proceeded to submit papers to turnitin.com, which you don’t even want to hear about. Really. I’m not going to talk about it.
That was the “bad” part of my day. Not very bad, right? I didn’t think so either. I love my job. And therein lies the good part of my day. I went up to the teacher workroom to check my mail box and was greeted by a fluorescent pink sheet of paper there in the box. What was this pink paper? Glad you asked. It was the final ballot of the “teacher of the year” voting for our school. You might ask why that is significant. My colleagues have voted me through the first two rounds which means I’m on the final ballot “against” two other teachers. Knowing these two people, there’s no way I have a chance to be voted teacher of the year for Putnam City High School, but that’s okay. The other two teachers are the type of teachers who make an impact on students and they are both very deserving and after all, that’s what its all about anyway. Impacting students lives. I am just honored to be nominated. Thanks faculty, I appreciate your confidence.
It seems those crazy scientists are ready to play with their toys again; I guess they are still interested in finding out just exactly how the Universe works. Of course you know I’m talking about the Large Hadron Collider. I’m following the success (hopefully) of this venture as they go, step by step, using twitter. If you tweet and would like to follow CERN, go here. I am getting live information as it happens; where the beam is located, what systems are running, etc. And its all LIVE! I love social media!
I’ll just be here, in my classroom, with students who are retaking tests, listening to music, and getting updates on the most expensive, most complicated machine known to man, learning how what causes the Universe to exist in the state in which it does. That is all.
Tonight in class, our professor was talking about correlations between matched/paired vs. non-matched/non-paired and he chose not to give a definition as to what those are. I won’t speculate on the reasoning behind his choice; I’ll just say he chose to define them by giving examples.
I only bring this up because I did the same thing today in class and therein lies my question. Is this a valid way to teach students the definition of a term/word? Because I can tell you I didn’t really get a good grasp on the meaning of these two contrasting educational research terms.
I wonder if my students felt the same way about the terms I was working with in class this morning? We were talking about constructive and destructive interference. I defined those two terms for them, but I chose not to define in-phase and out-of-phase. This refers to two signals which either correspond directly (in-phase) or are offset from each other (out-of-phase). Signals can be anywhere from zero to 359 degrees out of phase with one another. I guess my one saving grace is that I did a demo using two phase-shifted speakers which completely cancel the sound from the other speaker. Its my favorite demo of the year, by the way.
I will be revisiting phase shift with students tomorrow. Even if there is a chance students feel half as vague about phase as I do about about matched pairs, I need to re-teach the concept. At the bare minimum, I’ll be asking if anyone has any questions at all about phase and I will certainly think twice before teaching “definition by example” next time.
No, this is not about a fight between a parent and a teacher. Maybe I need to think about that as a fundraiser for Physics and Astronomy Club. This is just a little reflection on the day.
Today I have been working as both teacher and parent. Instead of working on schoolwork, both for the classes I am teaching and for the classes I am taking, I have been working as a parent. Studying grades, visiting with students, i.e. having discussions about make-up work and test re-takes, you know all of the stuff that makes being a parent fun.
I must admit, sometimes it can be a sticky situation, since my children tell me one thing and then a colleagues tell me other things, meaning the stories don’t always agree. Its difficult. In many ways I love having my kids here at school with me; I wouldn’t want to change it. Then, in other ways, such as the one discussed here, it would be so much easier if they were simply a teacher at another district school.
Its really much easier to treat it like a normal parent would by just emailing the teacher. I could easily talk to them at lunch, but why ruin lunch with talk of business? There’s enough of that going on at lunch anyway.
I’ll just keep trying to be a teacher/parent and make the best of it. After all, what more can anyone ask? Its all I ask of my own kids and my own students.
Thanks for reading.
