Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A Week in the Life of... (Part II)

In this series, I will record the interesting and not-so-interesting events of the school day and post it the following morning.  This is an effort to reflect on my day and my teaching and to provide you with some of the more mundane things that happen in the classroom and influence the process of education…

Tuesday
Last night, after an evening surf session and bbq pork loin, I made a test review sheet for Earth Science and developed some practice/review of graph analysis and the scientific method to reinforce what students learned in their solar house labs.

It is amazing how poorly written many of the packaged activities are that come with the textbook.  These activities are full of mistakes or just don’t work well.  I prefer to make my own worksheets and problem sets, but that is very time consuming. 

Today I had two sections of Chemistry and one of Earth Science.  Classes on Monday are 50 minutes long, but classes today and the rest of the week are on a block schedule and are 90 minutes long. 

Chemistry classes were focused, which was good because we were starting some important material on compounds.  In the first block a girl threw-up.  Luckily there are sinks at every row, so she gracefully deposited it there.  She took a short break in the bathroom and returned, ready to learn.  What a champ!  The lesson proceeded relatively uninterrupted – I think half the class was unaware.  That is not the first time someone has puked in the sinks.  I try not to take it personally.

The second Chem block was relatively uneventful, though I did confiscate a cell phone.  Texting during lecture…I guess this student missed the part about it being an important lesson.  I feel like I can barely afford my TracFone, I have no idea how parents and/or students can afford some of these fancy smart phones.  Kids can’t afford a binder, but they can have a wireless plan?

The final block was Earth Science.  A productive and focused day implementing the graphing and scientific method review.  I think the lesson really helped to solidify things for students.  Even something that seems simple at the high school level, like describing the shape of a curve, requires practice.

A beautiful warm day beckons outside.  I wonder if those tests from Monday will be graded in a timely fashion?  Thanks for joining me through my week and helping me to reclaim public education, one day at a time.

No comments:

Post a Comment