Peaceful and Productive

Today went well!

My classes were exciting; the kids presented in small groups and they loved being at the front of the class. Even my Village (like advisory or home-room) went well; we played the Human Knot and One Word Story (the class tells a story but each student can only say one word). The team builders worked well - I had not expected a positive outcome because the kids are at an age where they are too cool to hold hands or fall into a heap with others.

Here's a photo of some of my kids from Village during Spirit Week (2 weeks ago). We are Village 6, so our name (in keeping with the theme of superheroes) is the Sixth Spidey Sense. I'm responsible for the spider webs on everyone's shirt in electrical tape.

Procrastinating = posting photos

Here's the group en route to Key Biscayne our first weekend here.















The clouds and sunsets here are awesome. I have a great view as I run laps around the lake.


And the view of palm tress from my dorm window. A few of the guys had a fun afternoon cracking open coconuts.

Sunny Sunday

A sunny Sunday indeed. I have thoroughly enjoyed the nothingness of today. A tasty meal out, a steaming visit to the pool, a sunny walk, and languidly reading To Kill A Mockingbird in my room as my suite-mate plays her ukelele. This afternoon included a jog, more reading, and a dinner out. Ah, what a life.

This week will be a test of patience, preparation, and time management enough to rival exam week at school. Highlight events will include: brain dissection with my class; planning and executing Science Department Day (a half-day of demonstrations, skits, science trivia and snaziness), coordinating College Day (a day-long scavenger hunt at U Miami) and writing student evaluations (like narrative report cards).

Well-rested and well-fed this weekend, I am ready for the challenge.

Update at 11pm: now I'm actually planning what I will try to teach the kids Monday and my two classes are at very different places, so I have to figure out what to do. Reader poll: do I stall the fast class and/or accelerate the slower class or just let the quicker class continue to get through the material? By the end of the week, 2nd period will be a full class period ahead of 4th period. Is that okay?
I just graded homework, and about half my class perfectly understood a difficult concept about the "homunculus" (which is a map of all the nerves in your brain). I was very excited to see their answers!
In other news, donations of Lindt chocolate by kind owners are accepted!

"She stabbed you with a sharpened pencil?!"

Today has been a relaxed, restful day -- much needed after a rough week.

Thursday and Friday at school were tough days: we were all short on sleep, the kids are always rowdier at the end of the week, and now that they've gotten to know us, they are testing us. It's no longer a just a blast; it's really hard work too. (but still fun and rewarding.) We've had a lot of disrespectful behavior and several fights lately. The kids are great in Week 1, devious but well-behaved in Week 2, and in Week 3, they start to test us and show their true, not-so-angelic, colors.

A girl who put no effort into being at Breakthrough (no homework or participation in my class and enough attitude to go around) was expelled on Thursday after beating up a younger girl. I - and everyone else who taught her - was happy to see her go (is that too harsh?), but she really hurt the other student and couldn't care less about our program. We've had some severe "play fighting" amongst the boys and an increase in shrugged shoulders, rolled eyes, and sneers. It just makes it that much tougher, but at the same time, it makes me appreciate the quiet, well behaved, inquisitive students even more.

My students are becoming experts in specific parts of the brain and are presenting for 60 seconds about their expertise regarding the function and location of their assigned brain part. The first group to share was not great, so I will now talk with each one before to prep them, and encourage them to stand up straighter and talk more clearly -- behavior becoming for a true expert. The presentations continue this week along with our much anticipated sheep brain dissection. About half the kids are excited and half are reluctant, but I hope I can pull more of them in -- I was grossed out in the corner my first time with a brain dissection, but now I love it (excluding the pungent smell of formaldehyde...)

I have absolutely no internet on my computer now, so I will have to post from school or a friend's computer (like now). Adios...

[update at 10pm: although my wireless internet died, my LAN now works, so I have resurrected the internet. additional highlights today include: talking to the super cool Travis lots and lots (choquack!), eating a mango and talking with Albert.]

Fourth of July

I slept 12 hours today! It was fantastic. We went grocery shopping, had an awesome barbeque, watched a movie, and I'm catching up on work rather than catching up on fireworks, but I know I'll appreciate it tomorrow!

Tomorrow I'm teaching my kids about brain localization; how certain parts of the brain are specialized to do certain things. I'm using snazzy images from fMRI machines; it's doubly cool because the lab I work in at Harvard does a lot of work with fMRIs, so I am excited to explain it to the kids.

Happy Independence Day!

Lacking Internet

Not be whine excessively, but a technology-infused school shouldn't spontaneously lose its internet connection across campus for a full day.

Half of my lesson plan required taking my students to the computer lab to research for a presentation, but upon arriving at school to turn in my lesson plan, I discovered that we had no internet. No researching, kids.

Teachers must be flexible. We talked more about writing lab reports and helped the students revise their first draft. The average grammar, spelling and punctuation is abysmal. "Gunna" "you know", unnecessary "right?'s" and many more inappropriate terms are popping up. Instant Messenger and poor education will doom these kids. But, we're here to do our job, and if correcting lab reports includes brief lessons in subject-verb agreement, so be it.

Hopefully the tech works tomorrow. I'll be discussing the localization of brain function using images from fMRI machines (part of your brain does THIS and part of it does THAT...)

Wednesday is off (July 4th), so we'll see if the out-of-towners find a thing to do for the holiday. Back to writing my lesson plans for next week.

Cuban food, South Beach, Coco Walk

Sounds a lot more tame than last weekend, eh? Yet, exploring Miami with Travis this weekend was a blast. He's off to the airport (alarm clock: 4:45am), but here's the rundown of what we did.
Needing a change of scenery after a rough day in school on Friday, we went to Little Havana for a monthly cultural festival, complete with food (yay maduros!), dancing on the sidewalk, browsing art galleries, and bumping into the folks I live with. Saturday found us at South Beach after taking the "scenic" route to get there. After about and hour on the beach, a fantastic Florida storm attacked, sending us retreating to a gelato shop. After a night beach stroll and dinner, we came home and cleaned up, and headed out to a bustling area of college nightlife in Coconut Grove. On Sunday, we explored the CocoWalk commercial district of Coconut Grove - very quaint with a lot of French restaurants! Fantastic food, including a crepe avec Nutella and some great sale shopping completed the afternoon. A night run around my trail here avec a GPS measuring thing tells me the distance I'm running (which I did not know previously).


Now, to prep for school...