It’s time finally, to put it all together. Our incredibly kind and patient teacher Nikki leads us and. I completely lose the plot. My brain is full, I can’t remember one thing. I’m watching and catching up on repeat steps and then damn, they go onto the next one and I’m lost all over again. It’s a panicky feeling, just trying to blend in and end on the same boom, boom! as everyone else.

And here’s the thing, I am motivated to learn tap – getting up from the comfy couch on winter’s nights, paying good money for it and all.  What if you were forced to go even if you don’t want to, like kids in school?

If I were Nikki, I’d be thinking “I told them a thousand times, those stupid ladies.” She’s much too nice and laughed when I apologized for being so crap at it. Says it happens all the time and we’ll all get better with practice.

I’m sometimes not that nice. Well mostly, truth to tell.

It really is frustrating to have kids have trouble lighting the Bunsen or mess up on their graphs for the thousandth time.  It’s humbling to remember the tap dance feeling. Maybe it’ll help me be more patient with kids who plough a lab assessment and with stressed parents at an IEP who just do not seem to get the meaning in testing results. Maybe I’ll just get you know, nicer. It’s possible.

I’d uploaded some interactive animations of molecules changing state. Instead of homework, they got to play around with the animations in class and figure out the links between pressure, volume and temperature, the kind of molecule and melting and boiling points. Here they are: State of Matter Simulation from CU, Simple States of Matter Hotplate Animation from Harcourt and NOVA’s Conquest of Cold simulations and information.

To make it even more fun, I rearranged the furniture so that I could wander behind them to a. save my back and b. Quietly check what site they were on as the live Net Nanny (so we could all enjoy porn sites a few of which do get through our district filter. But no YouTube. Just saying.)

How to blow up the container with wildly wizzing molecules spread like wild fire, and with it, the first glimmer of Boyle’s Law. That was a lot easier than when I was at school. So fun to play around with the different variables and see what happens with no risk and no clean up. Had one student do it on the projector at the front while others were working on their own computers, just in case someone was unclear where to go or what to do.

A few minutes before the end of the class, cued them to share and write one or two new things they learned, and cite their site.

Interesting for me to see where they tended to go with it.  Fun to let them be playful like the best scientists, and like they are naturally as they cruise the web at home.

Changing desks and seating around, rearranging the classroom regularly is a powerful way to signal different activities, different expectations and different ways of learning.  The social part is fun for them too.

Changing the class layout for specific activities makes it easier for me to manage – the easier it is for me to circulate, the more I do, and the more friendly and thoughtful the whole atmosphere is. I recommend it, although a little more forward planning would have made for a less crazy day.

Take the fact that the majority of middle school science teachers are not physical science specialists. Add to that, that 8th grade is likely to be when students decide if they will take more physical science at high school – a major gateway subject for engineering, medicine, the energy industry, high tech etc. So it’s pretty clear that an excellent text could make a huge difference for how students see the subject.

I wish it did. Instead our text presents complex ideas in a technically accurate way, but misses steps in the argument and does not give a simplified conceptual picture. It is difficult for me to understand and is useless as a review aid to my students, let alone a primary resource for them. If this were their major resource for physical science (which it is in many, many classrooms), I can’t imagine why they’d feel like confusing themselves more in high school physics. (While there is an upward trend, only 48% of our HS students earn credits in physics in 2009 (NSF Sci and Eng. Statistics)

What to do about the textbook issue? Well, number one is to read the chapter ahead of time and not just randomly assign homework because the chapter heading looks relevant. Duh, right?

I have to, have to re-read the concept ahead of instruction each year – love Paul Hewitt’s “Conceptual Physics” text. Wikipedia is decent too, although very high level.  Kahn Academy has 3 minute chalk and talk tutorials that are a help for me as a starting place, and for kids to review from. My colleagues and I then chat about it and it’s then my job and pleasure too, to translate the arcane into the accessible, with labs, lectures, video clips and a mental picture of what’s going on at the atomic level. Plus how it relates to their actual lives.

There’s a snobbery in physical sciences around making concepts accessible – I think that’s what I’m feeling as I read the text book and imagine the committee writing it, perhaps trying to make it look high level and rigorous to reviewing politicians.

The art of teaching is to accurate simplification that will intrigue children and light the way as they wander deeper into understanding. Maybe then, we’ll have droves clamoring to take physics, and well, that could take California back to being an engine of innovation.

The wiff of truth being spoken and acknowledged, packaged with the incredibly hopeful message: that bystanders can say something during a bullying interaction and stand up for the victim. Or if that’s too scary, they can at least say something to the victim afterwards. It really can tip the water in the social tray and make a huge difference to a victim of a ‘joke’. Here’s the links to the clips we used: Dateline Bullying Clip 1 of 6 and you can find the others easily on YouTube.

From scanning what my 1st period class wrote, I saw some incredibly insightful, honest and gracefully expressed reflections about how they wanted to help other people and how it’s really scary, that adults don’t understand the risk of trying to stand up to a bully. And of course, other kids who blew it off, sometimes exactly those kids that I suspect might be ring leaders, maybe kids who didn’t trust that what they wrote would remain private.

After the video, some of my girls were asking if we (the adults) thought that bullying was especially severe at our school and I picked up that they felt a bit protective about our school community. They were so surprised to hear the bullying goes on amongst adults too, in the work place, between friends etc., and that bullying is a natural thing to happen: pecking orders in chicken and horse society etc. But that doesn’t make it right or good.

So fun to have a moment of honest interaction with them. The whole atmosphere in first period is more relaxed and friendly. So thank you to our admin and counselors for prioritizing this vital topic and spinning it with hope and honesty.

This year, for better and sometimes worse, we are forced to do four common assessments at each grade level that may not be multiple choice. It IS a good idea. In theory. In practice, it’s hard to bring together teachers from the “kings and queens of our class room” culture. We’ve come up with two so far at eighth grade. The second was for the Density and Buoyancy Assessment . The version I’m sharing is not the final, final version but for reasons of timing etc, it’s the version used in my class room this year.

Because we had to do this just ahead of teaching the unit, we really did have to drag out the science standards, and our school’s 21st Century skills departmental goals, look over what was done last year and consider what we wanted our kids to know and be able to do. And because it’s open ended questions, we took the step of letting the kids see the assessment from the start of the unit, so they also know exactly where they are headed and what the expectations will be. Feels more respectful and more real-life too. I suppose they could have memorized dad’s right answer, but in the end, they’ll have so much practice with the concepts and skills that they might as well learn them for themselves. I actually heard kids going out of the door last week repeating “1a, 2c, 3d…” for the next period’s multiple choice test. How sad is that?

As we were making decisions about what activities to include and what to cut, having the assessment properly sorted out really helped. I was also more mindful about separating out introducing a hard concept like buoyancy (with a rather intense, two day 12. Why do some things float lab) and practicing using the concept in a more fun and light-hearted way (Salad Dressing Science and how marshmallows float in hot chocolate just before the holiday break). It’s too hard for most of us to have rigor AND food fun in the same period. One tends to spoil the other. By the way, both these activities have teacher notes for materials and set up included after the student pages. Both labs have been tweaked in the light of our experiences too.

We used last year’s 2010 Density and Buoyancy short answer and multiple choice test (+ answer sheets) as a way for students to analyze their strengths and weakenesses before sending them home to review only the stuff they got wrong. That whole metacognitive thing is so important and so humbling too – admitting that you DON’T know something, brrr. But big time-saver too. Why bother with what you already know?

How are they doing? So far, their force diagrams for buoyant objects are great. We have yet to moderate the rest of the theory paper. The set up for the lab test on Monday is done (phew – see the teacher notes at the end of the assessment for help with that if you plan to use it.) I’m feeling anxious, with all the pouring of liquids and plopping in solids, it’s been basically bath time in 8th grade science class the last four weeks. Will report back in a few days when we’ve had time to grade it and analyze the results. Stay tuned.

Are you depressed yet? I am, and so are several of my most educated, engaged and action-oriented friends. We are dis-engaging. I mean, really, what can one person do? In any case,  we may well be past some vital tipping points. We’ll just have to hang on for the ride and hope to survive, right?

And yet, what about the young faces in front of me this new year?

Indulging myself with cynicism and darkness will stain my student’s efficacy and engagement. I’m not going to be an annoying Pollyanna – the reality really is pretty scary. Instead I’m going to let them find out much of it for themselves in the upcoming ‘Problems with Oil Project’ (see the tab at the top for deets.)  We are going to study the causes and effects of the problems with oil, and consider  what we can do (and WANT to do) about it.

In the big picture, I think that maintaining a civil society will be key – we are an immensely adaptable species and can survive a warmer world. What kind of world with that down-sized and different world be? Dog-eat-dog? Nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw? Famine, war and plague? Walled compounds and roving gangs? Or a well-managed, civil and technologically advanced society? One that’s worth living in and working for. It has to be a bright vision to aim for. Let’s imagine what a sustainable society could look like. In detail and often.

Managing the transition will take the soft skills of working together, learning from failure, critical thinking and empathy – perhaps the most valuable things I’ll teach my students, along with staying engaged. And that goes for me and my friends too.

Negative campaign ads are specifically designed to disgust voters and reduce voter turn out. It benefits the right wing. If we withdraw from the awfully un-civil political scene, who will be left making decisions for our future? Giving up because it’s frustrating and painful to engage, plays right into the hands of the deniers, the cynics and the rapacious, almost guaranteeing an apocalyptic future.

I’m inspired and urged on by Margaret Mead “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Let’s get re-engaged together and make SOMETHING happen, doing the best we can with what we’ve got right now. Not perfect, but let’s get started anyway. A small thing today – for me it’s deciding to co-chair the justice and mercy committee at my church, turning down the heat a little bit and to eat less meat (even bacon, the ultimate sacrifice.)

Happy New Year everyone on a sunny January afternoon that’s filled with grace and second chances.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,600 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

But one possible resolution might subsume all the rest: How about living as if those things we wished about ourselves were really true. Like say, as if I was a good performer so I WILL take part in the show, tap dancing with top hat and tails. As if I were confident in… well, fill in your own blank here, I’ll spare you personal details. But seriously, how much time have I wasted worrying about if I’m good enough to do this or that longed-for thing? How much have you?

How about dealing with difficult people as if they were doing the best they can in the circumstances. As if they are reasonable people? Not to be totally stupid about it of course, put up safeguards not to get injured or mis-used. But at least starting an interaction on the up and up.

What about dealing with seemingly hopeless situations as if there were some reasonable sliver of hope, and burnishing that up and opening the door for more?

I teach kids to look as if they are paying attention, including how to sleep with your eyes open and your chin propped up by your hands. (The key: Moisten your elbows so they don’t slide out from under you.). My hope is that it’s easier to ACTUALLY pay attention than just look as if you are.

Smiling makes you happier, behavior really does change your mood. Yes, ‘pulling yourself together’, the British school of therapy, does have some basis in research. My friend Fiona – the funniest Christmas letter writer in the world – has a DEGREE in psychology from Bristol (UK) and will tell you it’s all perfectly true, especially if you add several exclamation points.

Catherine decided one day to stop being so submissive to her husband and to Empress Elizabeth, and she did and became, well, great. The Great. (Although she took it way too far in the end. Only 1/3 the way through her biography but I think horses were involved.)

Another friend was so shy in middle school the teachers wouldn’t know his name by the end of the year. He decided to just get over it or he’d have no friends, and no life. He did and he does, an incredibly courageous and insightful decision at 14.

What would ___ do? I’ll slot in a leader I admire, a friend I trust, a mentor, a skinny fit person I envy, or an artist that inspires me, depending on the situation. I’m not going to pretend to be someone else but it’ll give another perspective to consider. Something new, something for the new year.

But first some riddles. What’s the lab glass ware with the best sense of humor? Which one is the smartest? Give up? The comical flask and the graduated cylinder. Yep, turned down Saturday Night Live to do the 6 shows a day gig at Orinda Intermediate School.

The 10. Density of Fluids gives not only the lab but also the prep and materials you’ll need at the end. Here’s the answer sheet too. To whet your interest, here are some pics of our crazy Friday.

All done on pajama day.

3. Using a pipette to float fresh water on salt water in our nasty cocktail

1. The 'set': How do these color drop desktop toys work?

2. D working out the density of 100ml of alcohol in a sealed bottle

1. There is more biomass of horse (or kids) than you. It’s a mind over matter game. If you say or do stuff with confidence, they think you are in charge. A whiff of fear and you’re off to the races, in a bad way.

2. It’s so profoundly great to have a mutual understanding of where we are going, and going together.

3. Things can change in an instant and you need to have decent balance, both paying attention to where you are now, and where you want to get to. Keep your head up, over rough, steep ground, trust that they will help pick the best way through.

4. The bad smell is actually kind of good when you get used to it.

5. I feel so great when I can canter without being scared anymore. The horse likes it better when I’m more relaxed too.

On the other hand I can usually sit down without too much pain after a hard day at school, and even cross my legs.