Trickery

Today, I had a good moment with my challenging class. Several kids came late, and the assistant principal stopped by to comment on that.

In the remaining time, I did an investment activity with a sneak attack of science. I drew a stick figure in a skirt on the Smartboard, and wrote "Who is Mrs. Zelman?" I then asked my kids what they thought of me. The first answers were "science teacher" and "nice". I then added some of my own: "sometimes mean." "Talks a lot." This stimulated some more honest answers. "Too many rules." "Takes off points for every little thing." "Yells a lot." "Doesn't give us choices." I wrote them all down.

Then, I asked why. The first response was, "Because we're bad kids." Finally, after a minute, we got to "Because you want to teach us." They came up with that on their own.

I explained to the kids that everything on the board is correct, with two exceptions: they do have choices, and they are not bad kids.

And then I threw in the kicker: they just did science. They asked a question, made observations, and proposed explanations for those observations. Bam!

One of my most challenging students stood up and shouted, "Yo, Miss, you tricked us again! I didn't mean to do science!" Success. I smiled the whole way home.

After school, I ran about 1.5 miles, and it was rough. My legs felt heavy and my nose was runny. I better get used to being tired. At least I was able to come home to a stuff-in-my-fridge stew in the Crockpot.

I was getting some work done, and realized that one of the textbooks I bought for my SCSU classes is the wrong one. Amazon Prime to the rescue! I guess I'm done with work for the night. I'm all planned out. Good day tomorrow, I hope.