It's Not Magic, It's Science!

This was a good week, but it didn't start out that way. Monday afternoon I was teaching a class when I got a call from the principal.  She had gotten a phone call from a parent about the grades her son was getting in my class.  It seems as though this parent had poured over the online grade book with a calculator and had a few things to say about my grade book.  This wasn't the first time I had heard from this parent.  And I was really bummed that she had not talked to me about it but had gone right over my head to the principal.  This incident sparked in me one of those teaching crises of faith that I go through every now and again.  I love what I do but is it worth it? Why didn't I do something with my life that depended on my output alone rather than what I can get 150 13-year-olds to do in 40 minutes a day? I'll never get promoted. I 'll never get a bonus.  And on and on and on in my head..... On Tuesday I came into school and I was still feeling the teachin

"Ms. Cimini! The M fell off!" When I heard that I thought the kids were joking.  My response was something like "So, there's an M just floating in the water?" I went over to investigate and sure enough, there was an M floating in the water.  Somehow, the M had come off the M&M intact and was just floating there. Everyone stared at it for a moment, took a few pictures then went back to dissolving M & Ms for science. Chemistry was happening. It was fun, fascinating and the students were learning. The M fell off (look between the O and L) Last year, I taught middle school chemistry for the first time.  I had taught regents chemistry years before and in teaching middle school chem for the first time I fell to a lot of the bad habits I had developed when teaching high school.  There were a lot of Power Points and worksheets. But this is my year of trying new things. This year I wanted to teach chemistry in a way that was going to make the kids excited t