Interesting Day

From time to time I'll throw a short blog into the mix about an interesting day at school. These blogs will digress from the train of thought being developed in my regular weekly blog.

Today we are in the midst of homecoming activities week and the kids were to dress as animals to earn points for their grade levels. I had a stuffed weasel that I put onto my shoulder with some masking tape. Kids just love being scared by a teacher. One sophomore girl screamed so loud when she suddenly saw it up close that she was heard throughout the building. Luckily it was between classes. What made it so funny is that I had her in class last year and she was used to my antics.
It is interesting how my relationship with my students has evolved as I have become more experienced. Kids appreciate a humanistic approach that includes some give and take teasing coupled with a teacher/student relationship that maintains some boundaries.
I have been wearing a lab coat on a regular basis for the first time in twenty years along with a tie. It is funny that most comments are about the lab coat and just an ocassional mention about the tie. There are only three teachers who regularly wear a tie so I am a bit surprised about that. but I did get comments about my Project Mercury/Space Shuttle tie today.
I will be retiring in 2-3 years and I thought I would go out looking as professional as when I started teaching many years ago. I wore a tie my first five years of teaching and then stopped, opting for a more casual appearance.
For secret agent day one of the sophomore girls is planning to wear a lab coat so she can be like me (although I don't see the connection to being a secret agent). One of the boys is planning to be me for Halloween and do the same thing. Should be interesting.
I had a lot of fun in lab today watching students struggle over finding a way to determine the volume of an irregular piece of salt so they could determine its density. In Physics one of my seniors figured it out. The advanced freshmen don't have a prayer. I seldom ever give kids a straight answer. I want them to use that thing between their ears to do some reasoning based upon the hints I give them. Some get frustrated while others accept the challenge. The trick is to keep them working at the problem without giving up.
Meanwhile my Fundamentals of Science 9 students are getting the hang of work with drafting equipment (mechanical drawing) and should be able to master scale drawings and subsequently map reading.
Last week all of my ninth graders were enthralled with the lesson. It was on an 18mm film shown on an old projector. None of them had ever seen an actual film in school. I have a film library purchased from EBay and the single concepts they present are as relevant today as when they were filmed. Videos tend to be too much of a shotgun aproach.
Next time it is back to Newbies.