A Positive Day

 October 3, 2012

First of all happy October! I am very excited that we have entered a new month, back home this would be one of my favorite months mostly because of Applefest.  This is my favorite festival in Charlevoix and this is the first year I will be missing it L. 

On a more positive note though, I wanted to tell you about my day.  I’m not sure exactly what it was today, but I loved teaching today.  My first class of the day was the 8^th graders and I know that I have said before they can be a bit squirrely and disrespectful so I usually go into class with my game face on.  I did just that today and told them I had a few things I wanted to show them, but it would require them to be on their best behavior.  For the majority of them this excited them and they fell right into line.  I did with them 2 demonstrations.  The first being a glass with an index card and quarter on top of it, when the card is flicked it goes flying and the quarter drops into the glass.  We have been talking about force and inertia so they quickly figured out that the quarter at rest wanted to stay at rest.  They also enjoyed getting to all try it.  This was a good start so I took them outside and showed them that when you spin a bucket with water in a circle over your head, the water will not fall out (centripetal and centrifugal force).  They thought this was amazing and all tried it.  They were laughing and testing its limits while other students and teachers looked on in amazement.  Once we made it back to the class and began discussing what we had witnessed I had several students come to me and tell me that class today was fun and REALLY interesting.  I was feeling really good.  It was great to see such a troublesome class come together and be truly engaged in learning and discovery together.  I now know that I need to continue to challenge myself to come up with demonstrations and materials that require very few or basic materials that I can find here because the smiles, laughter and intrigue were totally worth it. 

The next class was biology and they had a test.  While the test was boring (I didn’t get to catch any cheaters), I did thoroughly enjoy grading them.  All of my typical students that do well did, but what was truly amazing was that none of them failed and I had a few students who normally struggle a bit get As!  I was so happy for them!  Particularly one student who is new to the school and only went through 6 months of English training last year (imagine only have six months of a foreign language and then trying to learn things like biology, geography, and algebra 2 in that language), you can say this kid inspires me. He has struggled a bit on his tests so far because he didn’t understand the questions or the directions, while on the test today he got a 95% and when I excitedly told him he was overjoyed.  I also have his sister in another class who has also only had 6 months of English training and she has said that he studies for hours everynight and makes her talk in only English with him for an hour each night so that he can continue to learn and improve.  He is one impressive kid!

My last class of the day was chemistry and they have been struggling a bit.  I was about to begin class when one of the students said that he wanted to say something on behalf of the class.  He described to me that many of the students were feeling lost and confused in the subject matter we had been covering this week (moles and Avogadro’s number), and that they were having trouble understanding the way I explained things.  I will admit I was a bit defensive about this at first and we discussed things and figured out that I would look into reworking a few things, but for now they needed to work on their practice problems I had made.  I was feeling defeated and negative again until I realized that them standing up and having such an adult conversation with me is very admirable.  Instead of going through the motions and eventually giving up they took control of the situation and their education in a plea for help from me.  So I have spent tonight looking at the subject from different angles and coming up with new ways to present the information and new problems that might help them understand. 

Overall, it was one of my best teaching days here, I didn’t feel exhausted or like the bad teacher from Matilda at the end of the day.  I was content in what I had done and grateful for the way all of my students had behaved and engaged in the learning.  It was these things that made me want to share it with you all.