Day 157: Ketchup

Tomorrow, I have jury duty.  Today, I graded physics papers and tried to get caught up on my astronomy grades while they were watching Interstellar.

"It's an excellent movie in a very different way than The Martian.  For one thing, you have to tolerate Matthew McConaughey's accent and weird bulging blood vessels around his eyes."

Even though it starts out a bit slow, the students were highly engaged and asked a ton of questions.  Sometimes, those questions were even directed at me!

It also occurred to me that the scene at the high school near the beginning of the movie exemplifies so many things that are wrong with the educational system as a whole.  I'm pretty lucky to work with so many people who work for the betterment of students rather than reducing those students to single numbers.

The physics kids continued to work on their playgrounds.  There are some fascinating discussions going on around design and safety.

The modular seesaw is particularly interesting to me.  In creating a seesaw that adjusts for people of different masses, there seem to be two basic ways to set it up.  Either you adjust where the seats are, or you adjust the fulcrum.  So far, judging from the groups with whom I've worked, it seems easier to adjust the seats, but I need to do a few more calculations.


I know I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating: If you can get your students to draw for you, do it.

You won't be disappointed.

 And make sure you draw back at them.

They didn't as well on this particular test as I would have liked, but there is tons of time left in the year while they work on their playgrounds to answer any questions that they might have.

Day 156: Senioritis

With 1 exception, all of my students are juniors and seniors.  The last day of the school year is June 10th, but senior grades have to be finalized on June 3rd to determine whether or not they will graduate.

The seniors have 19 days left.  Of those 19, we have state testing, and therefore a 3 hour delay, for 6 days.  During those delays, the majority of seniors will not come.  I have been summoned for jury duty on Wednesday of this week.

I have 12 days left with my seniors.  Our final is on June 2nd.  Many of the AP classes, having already had their AP tests, have essentially let out for the year.  Many of those students have been coming to my class to play games, which works for me.  It works for everyone and the games help to develop problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork!

The physics students will be working on their playgrounds for the remainder of the year.  The astronomy students will be working their way through Interstellar and Gravity with a few activities related to those.

I'm exhausted. I'm spending so much time grading assignments that should have been turned in weeks ago because I wanted to give them every chance to demonstrate their knowledge.  It's so frustrating to hear "have you graded my paper yet" from students who turned in their assignment a week late.

That question is right up there with the students who pick their heads up from their naps long enough to declare how badly I want them to fail.


There MUST be a better way to help students be more self-aware of their actions and the consequences that follow...

Day 155: School Play

Our district puts on award-winning musicals.  In the past 26 years, the musical program has been nominated for 197 Gene Kelly awards and has won 97.

This year's show, Peter Pan, has been nominated for 9 more, and rightly so.

Last night, I took my kid and wife to see the show and it was incredible.  The scenery and costumes helped to solidify the illusion that the acting and singing built.  I am always amazed at what students produce when they put their passion into something.

A large portion of the success can be attributed to the director.  He has incredibly high expectations of his cast and crew and they rise those expectations.

If he tells them that they will be cut from the cast if they earn a B, rather than complaining about him, they work to make sure they get a B.  He demands a certain level of character and academic development from the students with whom he works.

And he gets it.

Part of the reason for this is that he controls an activity that is in high demand.  The students who want to be in the play REALLY want to be in the play and are willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.


There is so much rhetoric about how we need to have high expectations of our students, but very little explanation of how to do that.  There is tons of conversation about making lessons engaging so that students want to participate, but almost none about how to link these two.

I think that I maintain high expectations for my students.  When I design rubrics, I write them in a way that requires students to put their best effort into the work.

I think that I am sometimes able to develop lessons that grab student interest and get them invested in the outcome.


I have no idea how to consistently have high expectations for my students in areas that they want to do well.


The courses that I teach are not ones that students are climbing over themselves to take.  I hope that eventually, I will be able to make them so, but the reality is that I'm not there.  Several of my students have interest in astronomy and several have interest in the science credit that comes with passing my class.

On top of all of this, my classes are wildly heterogeneous in term of aptitude, ability and academic background.

There is a very fine line between having students be bored and having them be overwhelmed.  High expectations with students who are overwhelmed will push them further away.  Low expectations with bored students will solidly develop apathy.

There were former students in the play who did fairly poorly in my class.  They didn't work as hard as they could have because, while they enjoyed the class and claim they enjoyed having me as a teacher, they didn't care enough to do better.  Moving from a B to an A wasn't as high on their list of priorities as giving a stellar performance in the musical.

And I strongly support them.

A young woman in our school is currently failing her chemistry class.  She is not going to be a chemist.

She is, however, going to be a world class artist and she is already well on her way.  The level of effort and passion that she puts into her art staggers me.  What she produces often leaves me speechless and in awe.

The system of school treats her, and countless students like her, as lazy.

I can't change the system, but I can change how I interact with my students and the value that I see in them.

Last week, a young man (not my student) came to me and asked if I would listen to the music that he's been writing.  His friends (my students) told him that if he asked me to listen, I would.  I did.

It's excellent.  I listened to the four raps that he has up on his SoundCloud.  When I saw him a few days later, I pulled him aside and we had a conversation about what I thought.

He seemed surprised that I gave more feedback than "it was good."


I try to value my students for their passions, whether or not they are academic.  I know that I need to do more of this.

Teaching isn't about content. It's about connection.

Day 154: Playground

I have employed my physics students in my engineering company.

Yesterday, I wrote about my idea for a project on torque.  I wanted students to design a modular seesaw that would work regardless of the respective masses of the people on it.  Over the last 18 hours or so, and through several conversations with colleagues, I have expanded it.

Instead of just a seesaw, they will be designing 4 different pieces of playground equipment, each with a different concept focus that we have covered.  I want them to be creative, but also demonstrate their knowledge of kinematics.

They will have about a month to complete the assignment with the majority of the work being done in class.  When I snapped at a kid for asking how much it was worth before the paper was even handed out, they didn't ask again.

As the year comes to an end, we will be having deeper discussions about what should be in their presentations and proposals, but I suggested that they get started on the concepts as soon as possible.  I also told them that I would be available for any questions that they had.


Two years ago, I offered a similar project to my geometry students with mixed results.  I plan to learn from my mistakes of the past...

Plan to.

Playground Project by justinaion

Day 153: Balancing Act

I've generally found that if I want someone to understand a concept, it's better to show them than to tell them.  Since I've been teaching two new subjects this year, I haven't been as prepared to do demonstrations and labs as I would have liked.

Today, however, we started our physics lesson on torque and I made the time.  Torque is, I think, a fairly difficult concept for students to understand.  Most of the time, we've just spent 6 months talking about forces have to be balanced and then along comes the idea that objects of different mass can balance each other if they are spaced well.

I set up some examples around my room.

The large mass is 20 times the small mass

2 kg balanced against the weight of the board itself

8 kg balanced against the board

Large mass is 10 times the size of the small one, fulcrum is at the center of mass of the board

As the students came in, there were told "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!!"

As a group, we walked from station to station.  I talked about the set-up and asked what they thought would happen if I moved one of the masses.  In several cases, I showed them how the entire system could be unbalanced simply by blowing on the end of the board.

When we finished with each station, I dismantled it methodically and had a student replace the force with their own hand to examine how much force was actually being applied.

After a brief discussion, I closed the class by having them watch a video of Lara Jacobs.


The majority of this section will involve basic seesaw and balance problems, but, rather than a final test, they will be asked to design a modular seesaw.  The rough version of it will go something like:

Design a seesaw for a playground or back yard.  This seesaw should be useable by any number people, regardless of individual mass.  It may have moving parts, or special designs, but should be organized in a way that will tell someone where/how to sit so that, provided they know their mass, the seesaw will be functional and balanced.


In the next few days, I think about a better to work this.

I like this idea MUCH more than a chapter test.

Day 152: Appreciation

It's often easy to forget why we teach.  This job (career, profession) is incredibly difficult and can frequently feel thankless.

This week, however, we are inundated with notes, cards, memes and, apparently, cupcakes from students, parents and administrators reminding us that it's not a thankless job.

I arrived this morning to two notes in my mailbox from students.

I wonder if the second student thinks that I've died and been replaced by a body double...

During the day, another group was walking around giving out cupcakes to faculty to thank them for their hard and dedicated work.  A few of my current and former students made it a point to go out of their way today to find me and tell me how much they enjoy, or enjoyed, my class.

The majority of them have a tendency to talk about how much they didn't like the subject itself and, probably didn't learn any of said subject, but they loved my class.

Our faculty received several incredibly kind and heartfelt notes from our district and building administration this week.  I am deeply grateful for their messages and acknowledgements.  One line from a note today struck a particular chord with me:

I find myself taking those efforts for granted sometimes.

I realize how often I, too, am guilty of taking my students, my colleagues and my administration for granted, especially the latter group.

It's always easy to complain about one's bosses, to disagree with policy choices and make the mistake that if something isn't done in the fashion that I would do it, it's wrong.

The reality is both more complex and much simpler than that.

No one gets into education because they hate children.  No one becomes a teacher, an administrator or a board member because they want to ruin a child's future.

Yes, there are people who become teachers for the wrong reasons, but either they find a better reason to remain an educator, or they learn very quickly that this profession is not for them and they leave.

I don't always have to get along with, or agree with, my colleagues, but I think that frequently, I fail to acknowledge an important truth:

Every person who, either directly or indirectly, works with my students, does so because they want the best for those students.

I can't even begin to imagine how many times my administration has jumped in front of a bullet for me and the rest of the faculty so that we were able to do our jobs as effectively as possible.  All too often, administration is seen as a hindrance to what we try to do.  You would be hard pressed to find a teacher who hasn't heard some form of "if only the administration would..."

It's easy for educators to pass the buck, either up to admins, or down to students.

Yesterday, a colleague made a statement that struck me.

"Yeah, we deal with the 150 kids on our roster, but the admins deal with those kids too, as well as the rest of the kids and all of us!  I wouldn't want to do that job."

Our building principals have to work with over 1500 students and their parents.  They have to be the go-betweens for over 140 teachers and support staff.  Our district administrators oversee almost 4000 students and 350 teachers.

I would not want to do that job.

Even if I did, I think I do a poor job of expressing my empathy and gratitude for those who do.

I don't always agree with the choices made above my head, but I recognize that, no matter what, they are doing what they think is best for students and, what more could we ask of anyone.

We expect our student to make mistakes, to make choice with which we disagree, but for some reason when that happens with adults, we often write them off as incompetent or bad at their jobs.

I am, more often than I would like to admit, guilty of not appreciating the hard work that is done by those around me.  My colleagues, building principals and district administrators are working hard to make sure that our students are successful.  My own arrogance and short-sighted actions often make more work for those above me in the chain of command.

When convincing other educators to join Twitter, participate in chats and attend EdCamps, I frequently use the phrase "this job is way to hard to do alone."  More than that, this job is WAY too hard to do if someone is actively making it harder.  For that, regret each time I made the work more difficult for my administrators.

They have been fair and patient with me in ways that I often feel I do not deserve and I have not been nearly as appreciative of them as I should be.

So allow this to serve as a letter of appreciation for those who are always doing what they can to make our students lives better, regardless of their position in the hierarchy of education.

Thank you for everything that you have done and will continue to do to support my students, my colleagues and myself.

Thank you.

Day 151: Matt Damon

It's movie time!!

I was given permission to show The Martian in my astronomy classes and, with the year ending, many juniors and seniors not coming to school and several students in need of extra points, I thought now would be a great time to watch it and do the activities that I have planned.

I did some digging through the internet over the last week or two in order to find some activities that go with this and the other movies I'm planning to show.

Earlier in the year, I applied for the district to use some grant money to purchase several copies of the book and they came through in spectacular fashion.  In addition to the movie, I have about 60 copies of The Martian by Andy Weir (one of the best books I've read in the past year).

For students who are interested in reading it, I offered copies of the book.  Students who feel they need to improve their grades, there is also the optional assignment of reading the book and writing a 3 page paper comparing and contrasting the book to the movie.

33 students borrowed copies of the book, most of whom will not write the paper, but instead will just read it for pleasure.  This makes me happy since, as an avid reader myself, I know that nothing ruins a book more than a book report.

"They won't rescue me unless I can write an adequate character study of A Tale of Two Cities with in-depth analysis of how the themes relate to modern societal struggles!"

While it would have been more appropriate to watch the movie during our section on the inner planets, something incredibly important got in the way at that point:

I didn't think about it.

If I teach this course next year, I will certainly do it during that chapter, along with various other Mars-based projects, including having the students attempt to grow potatoes in Martian soil.

So much of this year was me just trying to keep my head above water and a few days ahead of the kids.  I've been doing WAY too much in terms of worksheets and tests and not nearly enough projects.

The other thing that I've learned this is which topics interest the kids and which ones they hate.  Specifically, they like all the stuff that deals with space directly and not so much the stuff that deals with the history.  Since we have a loose curriculum, I have a ton of freedom in terms of what I cover and for how long.

I do plan to cover the history of astronomy and how telescopes work, but I will cut down how long we spend on those topics and will minimize the amount of time we do the "math review."