Repeating history - does that sound like a good idea to you?

2017 in the United States of America and one of the many current conversations about Science is Data Rescuing. Data Rescuing. How do we care for scientific data? Just let that sink in for a minute. 

As a science teacher, I encourage my students to visualize the lives of the historical scientists we study and read about. I remind my kids that we only know what we know when we know it. Science is about collecting data, analyzing that data, and figuring out relationships between the data. Are scientists wrong? Of course, all the time, and how do they handle the new data that shows that the relationships they analyzed aren't really what they thought? They CHANGE their claims. Science is ever evolving, ever changing, morphing as we find more data, as technology enhances our ability to "see" the world. 

It wasn't so long ago that people thought that sicknesses were because people were possessed with the devil. In a world before microscopes, there was no way to imagine microscopic organisms, never mind these microbes causing disease. 

Science is the human mind's way of explaining natural phenomenon. Science is different from religion because science is based on evidence, AND changes with new evidence. Science does not involve faith in the unknown, but faith in a process, a logical, sequential, mathematical process. 

Math is the language of the Universe. Whether you think you are "good" at math or not, you are. Your brain evolved to notice patterns. Math is patterns. 

In Galileo's time, in Newton's time, in Mendel's time, in Darwin's time, there were people trying to explain the world through the logical processes of science. We excuse the push back because "those" people didn't know. They didn't have enough exposure to knowledge. Education wasn't accessible. Information was filtered as a small group of leaders saw fit. 

How, how? How have we gone backwards? How has the citizens of the US allowed a small group of leaders to decide that science data, and access to science data should be filtered? How have we allowed this small group to decide what is "true", not based on data, but based on greed? We have allowed greed to filter how we not only see the world, but live our lives, and how we make decisions. Does this small group really think that a world with more coal is preferable to exploring how our Sun's energy can be harnessed? 

I see greed, but I don't understand greed. Homo sapiens will not survive as individuals. Homo sapiens are community organisms. We need groups, a tribe, collaboration. We are now the Divided States of America, and unless we want to be a community again, we will collapse.

Just another day, and...

Today one of my coworkers died. Cancer. Just 60 years old.

I am a introvert in an extrovert world. I heard the news, and my first instinct was to get my dogs, and go for a hike. Find the forest. Feel fresh air, sun, dirt.

You know what I did? I stayed at school. I listened to your children. I consoled their tears. I gave them space, and then asked what they needed. We talked, we worked. I stayed.

It's my job. It's my job to stay with your children, to not leave, to be there. It is my job to be a content expert, a behavioral psychologist, a mediator, a mentor, a voice of reason, a comedian, an inspiration.

How much is that worth to you?

Ask yourself this as we near election time. In all this mess, where do our Presidential candidates stand on Education. Do you know? Are there local laws that need to be/should be passed that will support your schools. Remember, that even if you choose private or charter schools, not everyone has the luxury. Or maybe you don't even have kids, or your kids are grown, well, John Green sums it up best...

Please do your homework and ensure that the future of our world is ready for that responsibility.

Brain Vomit

I've been trying to mentally digest something for a few weeks and as of this moment, I'm not even past the chewing stage. Mental chewing.

One of my closet friends, that I've had for a LONG time, 25 years, shared her most recent raise with me.

We were sitting at the park, just hanging on a bench, chit chatting, like long time friends do, when she came out with the statement -

"My raise this year is $bleeeeepppp"

When I heard the number, I choked down a bit of spit and sat with that number in my head. Then I went home, and that's when the mental chewing began.

You see - her raise - her raise - is MORE THAN MY YEARLY TAKE HOME SALARY.

I don't mean to yell, but all this mental chewing has me out of sorts.

I know, I know, I picked this profession knowing the salary, but holy hell, when the scenario was presented as such, I mentally flipped, choked and wanted to barf.

What kind of world do we live in where a banker makes more than a teacher?

Don't you want your kids to have a kick ass teacher that rocks their universe into inspiration? You'll say, yes, you always do.

My Ren-like self

I was teaching about the classes of chordates and the mudskipper had an appearance in our text book. When it became clear that my students didn't know about the mudskipper, I quickly jumped on my secret youtube, get around the school privacy pages, access, and found this: (it's totally worth the next 5 minutes of your life)

My students were literally falling out of their seats laughing as the males foolishly fought, sighing and pointing as the little baby appeared, and gasping in aw when the males transported oxygen to the egg chamber. It was a beautiful moment in teaching, when, without any preplanning, everything falls into place. At the end of class my students left saying, "the mudskipper is my NEW FAVORITE animal!"

I spent the rest of the day thinking about the mudskipper and, therefore, Ren and Stimpy. It's been years, like 24 of them, since I watched Ren and Stimpy, but watch I sure did. I remember the Muddy Mudskipper Show and decided that I should youtube it.

I had little luck finding the part of the show about Muddy, but I did find this:

AND I realized, oh my god, I am Ren. 

Daily I say things like this:

"WHAT? You don't have your homework again? Do I need to stab you with a pencil and make you bleed and form a scar so that when you get home you will remember that you have homework?"

"Do that again and I will come over there and cut out your tongue with these dirty scissors that I cut the sheep heart with."

"I don't have an icepick, but I could give you a transorbital lobotomy with this pencil."

"If I pinch you really hard on the back of the arm, will you associate your inappropriate behavior with pain and like a Pavlovian response, know that bad behavior = pinch = pain?"

Ashamed, you should feel ashamed

I just got my property tax bill in the mail. I knew that it was in my mortgage payment, but I still felt a little hesitant to open the statement, thinking that it would be in the thousands; my prediction was $4000. It's been a while since I owned a house. What do I know?

So I opened the bill and for the year my property tax is - you ready for this- $808 freaking dollars. WHAT?? Then on the statement was a notice saying that 59% of property taxes goes to our public school district. So what you're trying to tell me is that out of the entire year of property tax, $476 dollars goes to public education??? And people are complaining??

Now granted, I do live in a little house in a ghetto neighborhood, but it's what I can afford and I'm assuming that those people who choose to live in big houses in the ritz can afford that luxury and the higher rate in taxes.

So I was thinking. Ok, so you have one kid and a house. For 180 days a year, from approximately 8 am to 3 pm (some parents drop their kids off at 7 am, I know, I am there, and kids stay after, so I'm rounding to 7 hours, even though you know it's more like 8-9), your child is in a reasonably safe and secure environment, not only being watched after, but actually educated, by educated people, with college degrees, professionals? Let me get this straight... you are getting full service on your kid. Care, protection, and an academic environment, not to mention character education, bullying prevention, homework help during my lunch and after school, all that for $2.64 per DAY!  A half a latte? At 0.38 cents per hour and my 28 students in a class, that is less than 11 buck per hour per teacher. But you see, we make more than that, so where does the money come from? How are we supposed to pay qualified professionals, update technology and provide a positive learning environment for your kid? You'll spend $5 on a freaking coffee, but you're complaining about the cost of taxes that support your child's school?

Now, just think about the families with multiple children.

I don't even have kids, but guess what... actually, I think John Green says it best:

This ain't no place for tact

My school district is full swing into this pay for performance thing. I had my final evaluation last week, which consisted of two peer observations, two administration observations and then I guess just rumors and gossip. We have rubric online that we have to fill out about ourselves and then the admin fills out their perspective and you meet and discuss. One of the categories is "professionalism", which includes things like working in teams, collaborating with other staff and families, extensions outside the classroom. I rated myself confidently and had evidence to back it up, and as the discussion came to team work, my admin pointed out that I wasn't very tactful. I know you are shocked, that you were thinking how amazingly tolerant and tactful I am, yes, it's true...
My response... what the hell, dude, tact? That is what you are worried about? We are in an emergency 911 situation here. Our school is more like a mental facility than a school. The clock is ticking and it's ticking fast, ain't nobody got time for tact. Now can we get on with this meeting.

Proudest fake mom ever

The highlight of my teaching career happened this past weekend while I watched one of my former students give a key note speech at the Global Issues Network Conference in the Dominican Republic. I think that she was asked as kind of a token appreciation since she was a great contributor to her high school, but when she stood up there and started speaking it became instantly clear that she not only deserved this moment, earned this moment, but she was owning the moment.

Tears ran down my face as I sat and watched her rock every person, young and old, in the gym. I felt like a true proud parent. 

Watch MJ as she inspires us all.

If you are feeling like you need more, you can watch MJ and I inspire kids to set themselves up for success...

The only constant is change

I officially have a new job (middle school science at a different school), a confirmed trip to the arctic to study sea ice for the summer and I'm on my way to Santo Domingo as I sit and write. It's been a busy few weeks...

Well, duh

I'm teaching physics to 9th grade, urban, impoverished kids. Accessing background knowledge has been a huge challenge this year, so many times we do an intro lab to build a bank of common experiences that I can then refer to. Well, today I was introducing a new concept, crumple zones, as they apply to momentum and impulse. I was showing videos of car crashes and talking about crumpling paper and basically trying to conjure up images of a "zone" or area that extends the time of the collision. (We're doing a lab tomorrow, today was just the planting seeds phase) Think accordion. Well I don't own an accordion or have access to an actual one, and I've never actually seen one in person, but on the fly I brought it up, so I said to the kids, you may not know this instrument, but has anyone heard of an accordion, and 30 faces look straight at me, and in unison said "yes, of course Miss, duh." I was super confused, "really, you all know what an accordion is?" A kid pipes up, "uh, yeah, Miss, we're Mexican."

I sat down and laughed hysterically. 

Reason

It's not that I'm forcing a reason that I moved back to this frigid inferno of ice cold arctic hell, but I think I've found one anyway. A while back I found this poem by my favorite artist...

It struck a chord. It does seem that meaningful stuff happens where ever I go and it tends to be instigated by me. I'm never satisfied with the status quo and I'm always thinking my way out of that damn box. 

So now I'm here, back in snowball hell and I've managed to get my school in the DR to pay for me and 2 students to attend the big student led environmental conference in March in Santo Domingo. I've chosen two kids from my club to travel outside the country, well here and Mexico, for the first time. For both girls this is their first time on an airplane and they get to go present our research on Toxic Treats (more on that horrifying topic later). 

Was I supposed to be here for this? To instigate and lead this opportunity?

Now, to get these girls a passport... not as easy as it sounds.

Whatever momentum is, wouldn't you rather be gaining?

It's just a second or third or fourth language. Science. The bigger problem is that you know all the words, they just don't mean what you think they mean. It's hard enough teaching terms like meiosis, which is just what it is, and doesn't have another meaning, but try teaching kids the physics meaning of work. You know work equals force multiplied times distance. You can sit there and push and push and push and apply a freaking enormous force, but if the object doesn't move, then you've done no work. Nope, not according to the physics definition of work.

I've just started a unit on momentum. I've been incorporating foldables into my lessons. Basically creating 3-D graphic organizers and I love it. So I was searching momentum on google images to find a nice picture to add to my lesson when this came up...

I like the quote. It's interesting and something to ponder, except that it has nothing to do with the physics concept of mass multiplied by velocity, which is momentum and measured in kg m/s. No wonder kids have such a hard time with physics. We are taking words they've used their whole lives and saying, oh, but now it means something else.

We also like to use the same word to mean two different things. Like how long is the drive to your house, could mean that I want the distance or the time. This confuses things. Isn't length a distance? Why do we use length to measure time too? Is time just a linear distance?

You see why I want to teach biology?

es posible

Quote from a student today:
"MISS if you teach us biology next year we can say penis and vagina for legit!"

I have a dilemma. I've applied for a teacher travel grant for this summer and I really want it, and for some reason I have a feeling that I will be accepted, but, the catch, I have to be a teacher in a public school to receive the grant, and I have to be that teacher for next year, because I'll implement my learning from this summer into my classroom. Problem, I have to tell my school by early March and the grant notifications don't come out until April. Yes, I could say I'm coming back and then if I don't get the grant change my mind, but I won't do that to my principal. I respect her too much to go back on my word.

I won't teach physics again. I'm sure I was on some sort of mind altering medication when I said yes to teaching physics. Ugh, who the hell wants to teach about momentum. But, there is a biology opening for next year, so I could actually loop with my kids and be their biology teacher.

Option.

If you only knew

I was walking by the school store at 7:20 this morning and one of my students... well, let me back up and tell you about this student. He is a year older than his classmates. He has a high IQ, but VERY low EQ. He shouts out random thoughts, hates everyone and everything, is overweight, carries around a huge camouflage backpack filled to the rim with god knows what. Drinks water out of a two liter bottle. Doesn't seem to understand basic hygiene. Well, let me give you an example of how he is in class.

Me: "Today we are going to do this super cool lab using steel balls and a bull's eye!" Him: "That sucks. I hate labs. That is stupid.

Me: "OMG this video of a human projectile is so cool!" Him: "That sucks. I hate videos. That is stupid.

Me: "We are going to use scissors and glue today so that we can create this super cool foldable."
Him: "That sucks. I hate foldables. This is stupid."

It is soooooooooooooo hard to have him as a student. The kids have learned to ignore him and his rants, and from what I understand, he is like this all day. He obviously has some sort of thing going on, and well, me being a physics teacher and not a psychiatrist, I just don't know. It takes an enormous amount of self control and energy not to punch him in the face. I obviously don't take anything he says personally, but let me tell you, it gets freaking old.

Ok, so back to my story. So this morning at 7:20 am, I see this kid walking out of the school store and you wanna know what he bought. THREE, yes, THREE Mountain Dews. Um, I know I said I don't have a medical degree and all, and call me crazy, but you think this kid's issues could stem from the poison he is putting into his body?

So now it's 7:23 and I'm in the copy room and there are a few other teachers there and of course there is venting going on. I couldn't help myself. I just had to give these teachers a little mini lesson on epigenetics, the fact that this generation that I'm teaching is the first generation EVER to have a shorter lifespan then their parents, that as a school we are feeding kids facts about meaningless physics and they are feeding themselves toxic chemicals. I ranted a bit. And then, I regretted it. The other teachers are living the delusional life and looked at me like I was completely mad.

I went back to my room and saw this...

Those teachers probably think I'm a ranting lunatic that spews all my thoughts at every moment, when in fact this graphic perfectly describes me. I know I say a lot of shit, but you can't even possibly begin to imagine what's going on in here. Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist.

Protect your pennies

It's a Sunday of a three day weekend and I should be procrastinating, but I have so much school shit on my to do list that I decided to use this fine, warm afternoon to do a little grading. I've been working on projectiles with my kids. First time I've actually taught this topic so it's been fun and challenging, both qualities that I enjoy. Over the past 8 days we have done several labs observing projectiles in motion, watched mythbusters, some youtube clips and practiced our new knowledge with a series of stations that assessed both the math skills and the theory behind projectile motion (of course 2-D motion, these are freshman). One of the main skills is knowing that if you ignore air resistance, a projectile launched, and a projectile dropped from the same height will hit the ground at the same time. No shit. Jaime and Adam did the bullet fired vs. bullet dropped mythbusters and it's freaking awesome. So over the 8 days, we've done some cool crap.

Friday I gave a little quiz to see how the kids were coming along... Sounds like a good teacher idea, until you think about who is going to grade all those little quizzes. I use the grading strategy of grading all 100 page ones, and then move on to page twos and so on... I know what I'm looking for so I am usually a quick grader and can zip past the answers in no time. And believe me, it gets boring. Reading the 100th same response or at least similar response. Yes, we did a penny lab. We launched a penny (horizontally) off a table and dropped a penny simultaneously and low and behold they land at the same time. Most of my kids remembered every detail from this lab. I even used my phone to recored a video from each class and show it as a follow up. Yup, the projectiles fall at the same time. So, of course, this is a concept I want to assess. Having doubts? Watch this.

In an analysis question the kids had to explain how they knew what they knew with an example from class. Here's one of the responses...

I laughed for 3 minutes, hysterically and have continued to smile and giggle now 3 hours later. Phonics at work, I suppose. This is a 9th grader in their second semester of the year. He's probably close to 15 by now. It's funny as shit and sad as shit at the same time. The thing about my job is that if I don't laugh, I'll cry. I'm just glad that phonetically pennies is penis. 

skip the bracelet

Nothing like trying to put on a bracelet to realize, oh yeah, I live alone. Don't get me wrong, I am so much happier in my current relationship status than most people I know in their current relationship. There are only 2 couples in this whole world that I've met that have a relationship that I respect and value, and ironically, or maybe not so much, neither couple has kids. The others, well, it only takes about 10 minutes of interaction before I think, oh, thank god, I am not in that kind of situation.

On another note, I got my results of the survey the kids took about me. They had a paper copy of a survey that asked questions like, does your teacher care about you, does your teacher have high expectations, etc... Well, 100% of my kids that that I make learning fun. Bam, right there, my goal is met. All of that other school bullshit is just that, bullshit. Another plus is that the kids said that they feel like they are learning, which I suppose is one step towards actually learning, but we know that high school brains are delusional. They may think they're learning, but their exam scores show a different story.

In a reflection the other day, I asked them what they see themselves doing in 27 years, when they are my age. Yes, they will be 42 in 27 years. I am 27 years older than my students... Of course it's an unfair question since I don't know what I'll be doing in 2 years, never mind 27.

For now I'll skip the bracelet, design awesome lessons and take my dog to the park.

Looking

I feel like staying in the public school system is walking with the crowd in the wrong direction. I love teaching, well, by that I mean that I love the actual interaction with people about cool stuff. Unfortunately my job is a combination of the awesome teaching part and the hours and hours of meaningless paperwork. I'm pretty good at ignoring the stuff that is meaningless, but here in Denver our pay is based on all that crap, well at least part of our pay.

What about going back to school? Would I be the old lady sitting in the class. You know, that annoying old one that keeps answering all the questions? My masters in education kind of pigeon holes me into things that I don't necessarily want to do. How do I know what is out there? There are jobs that I don't even know exist, how do I get my hands on those?

How about working at a nature center? Yeah, the pay would be barely scraps, but I've lived on scraps before, in fact, even with the highest pay I've ever had in the States, I still feel like I'm living on scraps.

What I do know is that I'm happiest amongst the trees.

multitasking

It's only taken me 11 years, but I've discovered a way to grade papers while laughing hysterically, and not at the pathetic answers of the students! This is so exciting. Open the NBC app on your I-pad and click on the most recent episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and commence grading.

And what could make Jimmy Fallon better? Why that would be adding a little JT to the mix. While these two are doing their best to keep themselves from cracking up I am smiling from ear to ear while grading! Miracles.

Flailing

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

Lately I've been feeling a part of the problem. Usually teachers can go to sleep at night and calm their money and time worries by thinking of all the good they are doing. All that progress towards making the world a better place and then NPR decides to do a report on the state of science education in the country. Dismal. To make science real, kids want it to be more fun and well, who the hell wouldn't want that?

I gave my Semester Exam today, well just two class periods, and dismal is the bright side. We have a screwed up exam schedule and bunches of kids that don't give a crap. Showing up to school and not even knowing what exam they are about to take... nice. I decided to let them have a "cheat sheet" with formulas, units, etc for physics and from both classes only 5 students had the where-with-all to bring it in and use it. We started it on Friday and they just had to finish over the weekend, or they could just bring what we did together, but no. Nothing. Then it dawned on me, that if you don't even care enough to see what exam you are about to take, why would you bring in a cheat sheet.

I decided to do a performance assessment for my kids on a modified diploma. This would enable them to show me their knowledge of the science process. I put together a lab idea, gave them the supplies and let them go for it. I sat back and listened, only interjecting for clarification. Remember I am teaching 9th grade. Obviously being on a modified diploma means you are below grade level, but while the kid was sharing his data, of 2.71 from reading the stopwatch, I asked him to clarify and said, 2.71 what? What unit are you measuring with. He said "distance". I cried inside.

Today I felt useless. Like my passion, energy, and excitement is being wasted on a group of people that don't have the ability, desire, I don't know, to be better, more awesome. If our system is broken, no I take the back, our system is broken and because our system is broken and I continue to work in it, I am contributing to the problem not the solution.

So what crazy, civil disobedience move do I need to make? What can I do to be a part of the solution? 

pods of homogenousity

I would like to know where in your life, in the non school world, are we heterogeneously mixed? Like, don't you have a job that other people chose and by that default don't you have something in common? Doesn't your job require you to have a basic level of reading and writing and by that default aren't you a bit homogenous? Look around your office tomorrow? How different do people look? Where do you grocery shop, who's there with you? And, don't misunderstand me here, I'm not talking about color, sex, race, I'm talking about the bipolar, schizophrenic, who thinks he was a dragon in his past life. Is he at your work? Would you come in contact with that person at all in your routine?

I got to thinking as I spent more hours tweaking the physics exam and then more hours on top of that writing a modified exam. Schools are mixing kids at extreme, obnoxious levels, like a kid that doesn't read at all, not even the word "even", to a kid at 9th grade level reading. The 9th grade reader didn't go to school to be a teacher, yet, so it is not only unfair, but unethical to say, oh sit the nonreader next to the proficient reader and the proficient reader will help him. What? Who came up with that plan. Oh, I know, a system that wants to cut corners and save money. Let's mix the kids, to pump up class sizes because kids are mixed in life, right? Right? Are they? When is the last time you hung out with someone who can't read? Where is that kid going to go? Would you say that your life is spent mostly with people you have something in common with? Don't you choose your activities based on what you like, like the rest of the world and therefore you find yourself with people that you are like instead of not like.

What is the rationale? I see that we aren't sending kids to mental institutions, but instead to classrooms, but it is hard for me to see the big picture. Especially since I drive by the homeless shelter twice a day, every day and I see that the lines and line of people are not well. Did they go to high school and get shoved in a stupid physics class, which did nothing to help them cope with the blunt world that awaits them. Am I just contributing to this crooked system?

I did modify the exam and I think the Newton's Laws questions are more accessible now, but who cares?

It's not going away, that giant elephant stinking up the room

Have you ever thought that with the exponentially increasing population, especially the majority of the people being born in the 3rd world, or to 1st world poor people, the system won't be able to maintain status quo? Our broken systems are collapsing and the consequence is less services and more tragedy. I know in my classes alone, I have four kids that are a threat to themselves, with fragile mental health and they are not getting the services they need because who is going to pay for that? So here the kids sit, in a physics class, of all things, totally unsuccessful because of the voices they hear, or their paranoia, thinking everyone, including me is mad at them and hates them. I have a kid that asks me several times a day if I hate him. Imagine walking around a high school with paranoia. Not a very supportive environment. I know I'm supposed to be positive about their future and I truly want them to reach success in their own way, but at this rate, being shoved in a class that doesn't support their growth, they are destined to wander the streets looking for food. I actually have two boys that talk about selling themselves on our main drag, I haven't asked for clarification, I'm supposed to be teaching Newton's Laws, but seriously society, we are failing.

And then there's another school shooting and no one bats and eye. It's an epidemic here in Colorado. Population overload and minimal resources. Where do kids, families, adults get mental health services. But that's ok, we'll just ignore all that and then ask questions like, why did that crazy person who has been crying for help for years bring a gun to school and shoot up a bunch of people and then kill themselves?

But don't worry, I'm busy convincing these kids to come to school and learn that force, mass and acceleration are all related in the formula F=ma. I'm sure that will serve them well when they are waiting in line for a handout at the shelter.