College Day - A Success

It's over, but it was great! After hours of labor, anxiety, and preparation, we did it! Today's "predictable unpredictable" included an half-hour-late bus, a severely sprained ankle, and lost groups. We took 70 kids to the college campus and set them free with a map to explore, learn, and get free t-shirts unexpectedly signed by several football players passing by. Despite the 92*F weather, the tardiness, and the kids getting lost and confused, all in all, they enjoyed it. I saw more genuine smiles today than I've seen at Breakthrough.

An energetic morning took us to the bus then to UM; we disembarked and I was responsible for the pep-talk and distributing important papers to all the chaperones and station masters at the posts. In the first 20 minutes, John (my co-coordinator) and I fielded at least 20 calls each from lost, confused, or mis-guided teachers. "Where is the Wellness Center?" to "When should I expect my first group?" to "The computer activity in the library won't work, what should I do?". We handled all of them - I thrive on spur-of-the moment stress and problem-solving. I can tell already that in a month of teaching I've become so much more adaptable and quick on my feet -- and I like it!

I took Frappaccino orders for the Chaperones, became the photographer of the event, and iced a nearly-broken ankle. She'll be okay; she's tough.

Here are some pictures because I really do love my kids. I started out wanting to teach for myself; wanting to discover things about myself, and grow in my own way. Perhaps selfish, but those were part of my motivations... Now, I know I can make a difference - maybe not life-long, but certainly a difference -- for these students and that's invigorating!

Emily, chaperoning her kids.

Students putting together their puzzle; when they completed each site, they got a puzzle piece. At the end of the scavenger hunt, they created the puzzle.














Craziness at lunch. Boys will be boys, eh?














An Energizer (call and respond cheer) at All School Meeting (the assemblies we have at the close of each day. They kids were psyched today!)

Ransom Everglades School - my site.

While the kids may be "urban", "disadvantaged" or "under-priviledged", the campus is definitely not! If Cary Academy were tropical, this is it. Plus a 2-million dollar building with coral walls.

"Breakthrough Miami"
















Elizabeth and Amy, two 8th graders in my Village, walk to class in the afternoon.















Why would you have hallways indoors when you're in Miami?















Looking toward the science building; I teach in a building beyond the science building. My building is being fumigated this week, so I may have an "unconventional" class on Monday (aka the auditorium or the patio where you saw Amy and Elizabeth!)

Brains! More photos

More photos from our brain dissection lab. Here are kids in my other class. I have 8 in the first class and 6 in the second.

Real sheep brain, model of human brain (accurate size).
My closed fist is a bit larger than the sheep brain in the foreground. The antennae looking thing on the bottom of the brain is the optic nerve -- it connects to the retina in the eye and sends information to the occipital lobe, which is in the very back of the head (far left side in the image of the human brain). I always wondered why the temporal lobe (which controls hearing and language processing) is sensibly directly between the ears whereas the occipital lobe, which controls and processes visual input, is in the very back of the brain. What's exciting, is my kids noticed and asked about this. Higher order thinking skills indeed.


Malcolm and Taylor, excited about Neuroscience!
They all took glamor shots with the brain -- isn't that cool! (I'm a nerd, I know!)

Collaboration and Peer-Learning! Here's half my class huddled around the brain, pointing out the lobes we've been studying for over a week!

Yes, Kiemayah, formaldehyde does smell bad!

Hard at work, answering tricky lab questions.

27.

Sheep brains and cute kids

Today, lab guide in hand, I introduced the latex-glove-clad world of dissection to my students, complete with formaldehyde and problems.

We dissected a sheep brain. I love it and tend to forget how exciting it is to the kids: I've done it four times now. My first class was fantastic -- leading a lab was a new challenge and it worked well (I don't have a science class, I teach in a normal classroom = no sink nor appropriate science equipment). I led my second class to a science room and we did the same thing, but it wasn't quite as fun. One girl really did not want to do it, which is fine, but she ended up crying in the corner, and one of my eager kids pulled out a tooth during the lab. It was both disgusting (clad in brainy gloves...) and hilarious to me. "Go to the restroom, wash out your mouth, wrap you tooth and put it in your pocket. Come back and we'll resume" popped out without thinking. Oh, and my mentor teacher was observing the whole thing until she was called away unexpectedly for a family concern.
















































Then lunch and the afternoon full of College Day prep, photocopying onto Papermill's Astrobryte collection (aka blinding neon paper that is color coded to correspond to the correct stations at t UMiami campus). We are almost done with the planning... and have killed several thousand trees.

What exactly am I planning? 75 sixth graders exploring UMiami campus in 12 chaperoned groups. I'm assigning about 15 Teachers, coordinating the scavenger hunt and 7 locations, lunches, buses, and more. So grateful for my other co-director -- he's been a pleasure to work with and we've been productive.

It's all tomorrow. I must sort through all the paper (several inches of photocopies to distribute tomorrow).

Fingerprints and Flexibility

Wednesday, I survived Science Department Day! I had a room with an activity about Fingerprinting (yay Forensics class!). We did a 3-min intro to FPs then discussed the three classifications (arch, whorl, loop). The kids got to make their own set of FPs and classify, then I created a crime scene with 6 known prints and 2 mystery prints that the groups had to identity.

It went very well, but messily!

Amidst the stress and scurrying of the morning, I forgot to send myself an imperative file for doing my sheep brain dissection. I realized this about 10 minutes before class, and had to improvise. I did it and class wasn't too bad. "So flexible I should be a gymnast!" Just kidding, but it was incredibly exciting to be able to "wing it" without disaster.

After all the fingerprinting and cleaning and endless staff meetings, I went home to my white cinder block walls to work on College Day planning with my highly productive co-director.

"My favorite teacher is my second period science teacher. She's very smart and fun and I like the brain class!" - Roy, to the entire student body

My kids finished their Expert Presentations today = we heard about the occipital lobe, temporal lobe, Broca's Area, Corpus Callosum, Multiple Sclerosis, and Epilepsy, among other brain topics. You could say my kids are ..... brainiacs! (chaquack!).

Both classes went well, and about half my kids are really excited for the SHEEP BRAIN DISSECTION we are doing tomorrow! We're about a week behind schedule, but that's okay. They will learn a lot more by doing it now rather than a week ago. I am asking a volunteer to take lots of photos during the dissection as a way to document the experience and share it with parents as part of our science display during Celebration.

Later this week, we'll discuss some issues of ethics in brain research and I'm looking forward to seeing my kids debate rather than just note-take.

Just to get you excited... (or grossed out in some cases....) This one is from the internet: mine will be cuter because of all the kids. Though, my mom lent me a few kitchen knives and I doubt we'll be using them ever again...!