Poker Face

Today was a day. Oh boy, was today a day.

With one day to go before the NSA1, it was science's last scramble before the big one. And this morning, I received an email about the lab practical. The practical was scheduled for Thursday in class and is a 20-ish minute exercise in which the students have the opportunity to design and execute an entire experiment. It's usually something very simple; in fact, the actual practical will be along the lines of: Is it easier to drop a penny in a cup with one eye closed or with both eyes open?

Today, we received an email telling us that the practical will be completely different than what we expected. It won't be a general describe-and-execute-a-lab. Instead, they will be expected to identify variables and write a hypothesis and graph data. Things they know how to do, but were not prepared to do. Fortunately, we now have until next week to do it, but unfortunately, I had to change my plans for today's three-in-a-row about ten minutes  before class started. Fortunately, the kids really stepped up and did a great job, but unfortunately, I was really stressed out, and it showed. My IL passed by and noticed that the kids were a little "off". I said, "Of course, because I'm off, and they know it. I need to put on my poker face." My poker face isn't too bad, because the other classes picked up after that.

Then, I got an email from the NJ DOE regarding my certification. There are some other issues, but I won't talk about that. I'm too cranky.

Oh, and it's Tuesday, so I have detention. The kids were not cooperative at all. Detention is very frustrating. At least, I have free labor to sharpen pencils for tomorrow's exam.

T-minus one day until NSA1. I've got this.