Call me Mr. Freaking Wizard.
Teaching October 23rd. 2006, 11:01pmThe focus of my last class of the day today has changed once again. My student has a series of mid-term examinations this week. She studies at school taught entirely in English. She’s been coming for extra English lessons for months now, but today the class was somewhat different. I was teaching science! Her lesson in her science book was about planets, axis rotation and why we have seasons. Thematically, this works well, because in her reading books done by the same publishers, all the stories also feature lessons about seasons and weather. Instead of focusing on poems about winter, we are moving on to the science about where there is a winter.
Before class, both my director, and my student were asking me, "Did you, uh, study science? Do you like science?" They wanted to know if I was going to be able to prepare the lesson. Going into the class, I didn’t know why they were suddenly interested in such topics. The only science I did poorly at in high school was chemistry. (I passed the class solely due to my ability of being able to quote a line from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". True story.) General science was something I was always interested in.
Luckily, I had a degree of understanding that let me grasp third grade science well enough to get the basic points across. My cup represented the sun, and her phone represented the Earth spinning on it’s axis. We went over the terms and eventually she could predict the weather in a particular location based on it’s position relative to the sun.
We moved on to phases of the moon, the lunar calendar, and composition of the moon and other planets in the solar system. I even remembered the mnemonic device "My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas", (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) where the bold letters represented planet names. I had to modify the device now that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Now it’s simply, "My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Noodles."
Things I’ve learned while teaching science for a single lesson? Sometime in the past I’ve subconsciously I’ve adopted the British/International pronunciation of "Uranus". I now say "Uran-us" with a "soft a" sound, instead of the Mid-western American"Ur-anus" with a "hard a". I realize now that would be how a doctor talks about your sphincter. When I went to correct the student’s pronunciation, she got a laugh as to why I was insistent that the "soft a" sound was more pleasant to listen to for a native speaker.
Since this is a cram class, we’ll have another lesson tomorrow before the test. More science lessons tomorrow! It’s a change of pace from my other classes, where I am reviewing for tests and preparing for mid-terms next week. (Halloween = Canceled! DAMN!)
5 Responses to “Call me Mr. Freaking Wizard.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:54 am
“I passed the class solely due to my ability of being able to quote a line from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. True story”
That is a story I want to hear. Which line? Thanks to Ghostbusters II the atomic weight of cobalt is etched in my memory.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:08 am
Ghostbusters II? I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone quote from that movie. Wow. Also, I second the request for more backstory!
October 24th, 2006 at 9:31 am
My chemistry teacher was a huge nerd. We had a system whereby anyone could exempt examinations in class if they had a high enough grade and had perfect attendance for the semester. We would get whatever grade we had at the time as our final grade if we exempted. Most of the class routinely failed his tests, because he was a terrible teacher.
Anyway, he offered a free exemption, and a straight “B” for your score if you could answer one question in class. He made it a very big deal. He made people get out papers and pencils and talked about easy this question would be. Everyone leaned in to hear the question:
“What is latent air speed velocity of a swallow?”
Everybody in the class, except me, got a “What the hell?” kind of question was that look on their face.
I laughed out loud and wrote down the answer: “African or European swallow?” and handed it to my Chemistry teacher. Everyone in the class thought I was insane. He told me I was right, and that I got a free pass for his examination. Then suddenly everyone thought I was a genius. I had seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail a WEEK before the question was asked and the entire movie was still fresh in my mind. It was awesome. One of the few times that my geekiness came in handy during all of high school.
October 25th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Your teacher sucks. You got a pass in Chemistry without having to answer a single question even vaguely related to Chemistry.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
The attendance exemption system allowed me to exclude up to two examinations per semester. I could have gone the WHOLE year without needing to take a final exam in the class if I so chose. I just happened to get an extra exemption because I did know something else. A vast majority of students exempted their worst examinations and escaped high school never having to take exams in entire courses. Flawed system for sure.