Princesses vs. Fairies

I was talking to my students today about the Halloween plans: "Well, Sebastien is going to be Lightning McQueen and Isabelle is going to be Tinkerbell"  Then one kid says "Who's Chongers going to be?" I give him the Look and say "Chongers IS Sebastien!"

I mean, c'mon - it's one thing not to understand me when I talk about physics, but you have to go and not get my kids' nicknames straight?

I then launch into an unprompted speech on how fairies are better than princesses.  "Fairies have skills and jobs.   The Princesses just sit around in pretty dresses waiting to marry rich Princes.  Which role model do you want for your little girl?"

Feeling pretty smug, I then notice a girl in the front row slump down and mutter under her breath, "Thanks, you just ruined my life..."

My First Prezi

When I'm teaching, I sometimes wish I could show the students how the information is organized and interconnected in my mind.  Obviously, this would not be a good thing even if it were possible - but I have the desire nonetheless.

Just the other day, a fellow science teacher (thanks, KW!) showed me how 'prezis' work and I thought to myself, hmmm... this could bring me one step closer.   Here's my first attempt at a representation of projectile motion that comes close to presenting how I picture the information in my head.  Well, it doesn't really come close but I am using it to test the software out.

Projectile Motion on Prezi

Degrees of Separation

Recently I got my one degree of separation with the governer down to zero.  (used to be one degree because Deval Patrick's former high school physics teacher is a professional acquaintance). 

This gets my degrees of separation with President down to one since he is a friend of the governor.
(Irene and I were attending a fundraiser at the MFA when the governor made a surprise visit).

As my sphere of influence grows, I will use my power to influence the future of public education to be:

"All Physics, All the Time, K-12"

(insert evil laughter here)

Pumpkin Pi

Notice the pumpkin Isabelle is touching - that one is Irene's (in honor of our late friend Stephen).  Just to Izzy's left is the one she drew and I carved. 

This was a Rideout household first (the entire carving experience), but I wanted to be sure that everyone was spooked by the "transcendental" nature of the event - irrational, scary stuff indeed.

 

Resonance: Respect the Natural Frequency!

I plan on making this video my entire lesson when we get to the unit on resonance and natural frequencies.  Please note my dismayed "not working" comment near the end!

Nonplussed by the Penultimate Redoubt

In science education we speak of the problem of prior misconceptions.  Those pesky ideas that everyone has wrong and are so hard to educate away.  Like that the Earth is closer to the Sun in the summer time.  Or that heavier object fall faster than lighter ones.  We find that students will learn the right answer for your test, but then go right back to their old bad habits afterwards.

Just recently I made a connection with my own bad habits regarding certain plain-old regular words.  For whatever reason, I learned some words incorrectly at first and now it takes work every time I use them to use them correctly!  For instance I might read this entry's title to mean "Not impressed by the better than best look-out"  when it really means "Baffled by the next-to-last stronghold".  Some part of my brain knows that the second phrase is correct, but I can't stop myself from reading it the first way initially.  I can not clear my prior misconception of those words - something about the way our brains lay down memories really does justice to the old "initial impressions matter most".
 
Unlike science misconceptions, I could just continue to misuse these words and hope that society changes their definition to suit me.  One the other hand, the axial tilt of the Earth and the planet's gravitational field are probably less likely to change to accommodate my students...