A month in and still plugging away
Well, It has been just over a month since I arrived here in the UK, and I think I am starting to get settled in. I have learned quite a bit of local terminology and local customs that I at least I understand what's going on. E.g. "cheers" as a "thank-you" or "yalright?" as a greeting. (I think it is a shorted form for "are you alright". So a conversation may start with "yalright?" and responded with "Yeah".) I definitely haven't tried speaking with a Essex accent much, the kids say it sound German.
This past week, I have been leading some hands-on practicals (we call them labs at home). It has been quite tough sometimes. The set up of the equipment is a little different, such as the to clamp a test tube (sorry: "boiling tube") , you have use two different kinds of clamps. And they science is a little different, such as they teach the electron flow is from the positive pole to the negative pole, because that's the way it was first hypothesised. The flow is actually from negative to positive, but they can't be bothered to correct it because the rest of the world still does it that way. ("Big deal" you might say, which you are partially right. The theory and math is still the same, but since I think of it the other way around, it can really mess me up when I am teaching the electricity unit).
Some of the practicals have really bombed, with students not even bothering to look at the instructions. I am not sure how much I can trust some of these students to perform the practical safely. The one I had on Friday, however, went very well, and the students really liked it. (Some of them even volunteered to wash up more than their share of glassware!) We burned sugar and measured how much the temperature of water rose over a couple of minutes, thus calculating the energy stored in the sugar.
Last Saturday, I came in school to get some work done so that my Monday would be less hectic. Saturday was also the 50th anniversary celebration of Alderman Blaxill School, so I meant just to pop in for a while and get back to work. I left two and a half hours later and ran out of time to work in my room. But I did get to hear how the staff and students from the old school walked a couple of miles on a hot summer day, transporting their books and desks. They left in the morning and when they arrived and put their equipment in the correct places, the teachers allowed the students to drape themselves across their desks to rest for the remainder of the day. I also heard stories of protocol for air raids during WWII
If air raid warning is sounded,
Then headteacher goes out side to check the air.
If planes are spotted,
then students take refuge under desks
If no planes spotted
then students go home
and head teacher phone all families to check if they are alright.
It was mentioned that there was a period where there were no air raid warnings for a full three weeks during the war.
As for toursity stuff, I decided to go to London on Sunday. On the train ride to London, I discovered I was sitting across from a young woman from Germany, so we had a good conversation in half in German, half in English (when I didn't know the German words). In London, I went to the Science Museum, which is right next to the Natural History Museum that I visited last month. I liked it well enough, and free admission can't be beat, but some of the displays did not really catch my imagination. Some of the displays were not really working either. The Foucault Pendulum was not swinging at all and the hot air balloon demo had a hole in the balloon, so it didn't go anywhere. Some of displays were interesting enough that I might come back again. There was a display of over 10 different 3D mobius strips made out of glass, and the 10 foot long Babbage Calculator was really neat. The Museum is now making one can do calculations accurate to 16 decimal places.
Ok, so that just prove I'm a science buff. I go do science things even when I'm not teaching science. For pleasure reading, I'm almost done "A Short History of almost Everything" which is a book about science (a good read for any of you science teachers). Maybe I should find something else other than science this weekend...
Kevin
This past week, I have been leading some hands-on practicals (we call them labs at home). It has been quite tough sometimes. The set up of the equipment is a little different, such as the to clamp a test tube (sorry: "boiling tube") , you have use two different kinds of clamps. And they science is a little different, such as they teach the electron flow is from the positive pole to the negative pole, because that's the way it was first hypothesised. The flow is actually from negative to positive, but they can't be bothered to correct it because the rest of the world still does it that way. ("Big deal" you might say, which you are partially right. The theory and math is still the same, but since I think of it the other way around, it can really mess me up when I am teaching the electricity unit).
Some of the practicals have really bombed, with students not even bothering to look at the instructions. I am not sure how much I can trust some of these students to perform the practical safely. The one I had on Friday, however, went very well, and the students really liked it. (Some of them even volunteered to wash up more than their share of glassware!) We burned sugar and measured how much the temperature of water rose over a couple of minutes, thus calculating the energy stored in the sugar.
Last Saturday, I came in school to get some work done so that my Monday would be less hectic. Saturday was also the 50th anniversary celebration of Alderman Blaxill School, so I meant just to pop in for a while and get back to work. I left two and a half hours later and ran out of time to work in my room. But I did get to hear how the staff and students from the old school walked a couple of miles on a hot summer day, transporting their books and desks. They left in the morning and when they arrived and put their equipment in the correct places, the teachers allowed the students to drape themselves across their desks to rest for the remainder of the day. I also heard stories of protocol for air raids during WWII
If air raid warning is sounded,
Then headteacher goes out side to check the air.
If planes are spotted,
then students take refuge under desks
If no planes spotted
then students go home
and head teacher phone all families to check if they are alright.
It was mentioned that there was a period where there were no air raid warnings for a full three weeks during the war.
As for toursity stuff, I decided to go to London on Sunday. On the train ride to London, I discovered I was sitting across from a young woman from Germany, so we had a good conversation in half in German, half in English (when I didn't know the German words). In London, I went to the Science Museum, which is right next to the Natural History Museum that I visited last month. I liked it well enough, and free admission can't be beat, but some of the displays did not really catch my imagination. Some of the displays were not really working either. The Foucault Pendulum was not swinging at all and the hot air balloon demo had a hole in the balloon, so it didn't go anywhere. Some of displays were interesting enough that I might come back again. There was a display of over 10 different 3D mobius strips made out of glass, and the 10 foot long Babbage Calculator was really neat. The Museum is now making one can do calculations accurate to 16 decimal places.
Ok, so that just prove I'm a science buff. I go do science things even when I'm not teaching science. For pleasure reading, I'm almost done "A Short History of almost Everything" which is a book about science (a good read for any of you science teachers). Maybe I should find something else other than science this weekend...
Kevin
posted by K. Stoesz at 11:03
1 Comments:
Kevin, thanks for sharing the photo album, I seem to reconize someone from Altona. Great pictures.
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