SEX SELLS ... er ... I mean CELLS

I'm currently grading the booklets and extra credit from the 7th Grade Science, Genetics unit (about three weeks late, but there you go).  I just finished scoring a young lady's booklet who made an innocent, I'm sure, spelling mistake, which mistakes are certainly not uncommon for 7th graders.  When I taught English, years ago, it was surprisingly common to see the word "graj," meant to indicate "garage."  The mistake I found today, however, has a bit more resonance.  On a page of class work focusing on the topic of meiosis, this young lady mistakenly spelled the male sex cell not "sperm," but "spurn."  Freudians, unite!

New Word from B3, Science 7 Student

SMARTICLE, adjective; def: implicit; I am confused by all these smarticle words; commonly accompanied by gesticulation similar to turning an invisible steering wheel left and right, left and right.

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SOMETIMES I WISH I WERE ON MEDS SO I TOO MIGHT "FORGET" TO TAKE THEM

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This week I'm subbing for a resource reading class.  Today, third period, one of my students came in and told me he forgot to take his meds this morning and had a big cup of coffee before the bus came.  Five minutes ago he jumped up, bounced a few times, and announced at the top of his lungs:

I'VE GOT ADHD WITH ALMONDS!

Then he sat down.  He is currently vibrating in his seat, and sucking his fingers.

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TWO THINGS THAT, TODAY, HAVE MADE MY DAY

ONE:

I have been accepted to Ohio Northern University College of Law, which response is the first, positive or negative, from the seven law schools to which I have applied.  What a relief!  That means, whether I'm accepted anywhere else or not, well, I'm going to law school in the fall.  What's more, and while I can't say for sure that its role was integral in my acceptance, this validates, at least to a point, my maverick approach to writing my personal statement.  Take that, naysayers!

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TWO:

Today is my last day subbing for 8th grade science.  (HERE's the first entry, typos and all, from my tenure in this particular classroom.)  While reaction to my time here really requires a full entry, I'm going to leave it at this: it's been a great experience, I'm actually pretty good at teaching science, and I'm really going to miss these kids--even though they're eighth graders.  All that aside, a young lady in my first period class said something really funny today.  Context: Someone needed to borrow a pen.  He took one of mine.  I let him, because he's always returned pens in the past.  When he was finished with it, I told him to just go ahead and throw it to me.  He threw it.  I didn't catch it; more accurately, I missed it.  The young lady in the back laughed, so I threw the pen at her.  (I did wait until I knew she was ready.)  She missed.  I laughed at her (this is all quite good-humored, by the way).  "And you made fun of me?" I asked, so she said: "Hey, I'm a girl.  What's your excuse."

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything to say that couldn't, potentially, get me into trouble.  So I only laughed with her.

A Good Class is a Goofy Class

Last week began to remind of teaching for real, not because of any particular subject matter, but because of the absolute goofiness that cropped up in a couple of classes.  I guess it was a matter of comfort--teacher to students--as anything else.

We're talking about waves in 8th grade science right now.  Our working definition is, "A wave is the propagation of energy through a medium."  Amplitude and frequency are both measurements for how much energy is being propagated.  We talked about how this is why your ipod runs out of batteries faster at a higher volume.  We also talked about higher frequencies--for audio waves, this means higher pitch--indicating higher energy consumption (disregarding the energy required to drive the speakers) and someone said, "I knew it!  Justin Bieber does destroy ipods!"

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I don't remember the discussion that brought up the '80's, but one boy concurred with the general concensus: "Yeah, the '80's was a real bad year!"  When the class all turned dumbfoundedly to stare at him, he corrected himself: "I mean, it was a real century, I mean week, I mean," and he struggled a moment before finally recognizing it as "time."

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girl: "Every time I think of Mr. Center, I think of a centipede for some reason."

boy: "What, like Mr. Centerpede?"

Mr. Center: "At least once a day."

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