Snowzilla 2011!

The wind is howling outside my office window as the great snow storm of 2011 rages on. I am in a state of exhaustion as a result of overwork, lack of sleep, and a nagging upper repertory infection I have been battling since Christmas vacation. My day begins at 5:45 am when my alarm goes off and ends sometime around 7:00 pm when I get back home from teaching all day and tutoring. Last week was especially exhausting because of four discipline board meetings over two days, a department meeting, and a pile of papers to grade. The storm has caused many problems, but the day off tomorrow from school and tutoring because of the snow will provide a welcome period of rest—at least until I have to take out the snow blower and take care of business outside. I pray that the snow will be so deep that we will be off Thursday as well.

I am old enough to remember the great storm of 1967 when I was a freshman in high school. The snow began early morning and was bad enough by 11:00 that school was called off and we were all sent home. I lived about four blocks from school so I got home without a problem. About 20 students and a teacher were stranded in the building for two days because their bus could get through to pick them up. School was shut down for three days. In ‘67’, the storm was a complete surprise stranding many who did not react fast enough to the weather emergency. In contrast, this storm was predicted well in advance allowing people time to prepare. Not wanting the same situation to occur, the principal decided to send everyone home at 1:20, several hours before the main storm hit. We got the automated phone message calling off school for tomorrow at 7:30 this evening.

This week we are at the midpoint of 3rd quarter. I have several students failing at this point, mostly because they have been absent and have not made up the work they missed yet. I plan to spend tomorrow grading make-up work and will contact parents by email if anyone is still failing after everything has been recorder.

My yearly evaluation has been completed, but the administrator in charge of my observation has not yet scheduled a meeting with me to go over his notes. I did meet with the principal today about some minor department matters. I want to drop my final exam in AP Chemistry and replace it with a lab project; something the principal has indicated that she would be in favor of. I got her permission to set up the project and approval to let the students off for their regular exam time. We then needed to edit some of the class descriptions for the B-Level courses; the lower level class for the less capable students.
Apparently, these descriptions need to be edited to meet NCAA standards. The NCAA needs to approve all high school courses for college bound athletes. Everyone in the high schools knows the process is a joke, but for a student to obtain an athletic scholarship we must “word” our course descriptions appropriately.

The stack of papers to grade on my desk is eight inches high and awaits my attention tomorrow. I plan to dive in after my coffee and breakfast in the morning. Thank God for the snow day!

Second Semester Begins

Today is the last day of Christmas vacation and I am spending my time relaxing in preparation for school tomorrow. I spent two solid days making lesson plans, copies of student materials, and new seating charts. Yesterday I spent six hours at school in preparation for “go time” tomorrow. Getting ready for second semester is similar to getting ready for the beginning of school.

My class lists have changed little from first semester. Two AP Chemistry students have seen the light and decided to drop my class, while another is “thinking about it” for now. Two students were moved up from regular chemistry to my fifth period Honors chemistry class—both coming highly recommended from their former teacher. A new student was added to my regular chemistry class. She was not in chemistry last semester and is not a transfer student, so I assume that she is someone who failed second semester last year and has to repeat.

The first two weeks of second semester is the time period this year for my observation and evaluation by administration. I was assigned to an assistant principal for my evaluation, someone who has evaluated me in the past. I emailed him over break; attaching copies of my syllabus, schedule, and study guide for the unit. Protocol suggests that I we would have an initial meeting to go over the syllabus and schedule several observations. Last year three observations were scheduled, but only one occurred. From talking to other faculty members I have found that the observations can be meticulous, getting to the minutia of a teacher’s work, or superficial to the point of being worthless. As a consequence, many faculty members fear being observed, and lack the proper respect for the process. Many believe that our administrators have preconceived notions concerning their competence, using the observation process to harass teachers they find fault with, while letting their “pets” skate by with little or no supervision. While I find this conclusion false, I can see why it persists.

At any rate, I am going to bed. I anticipate a long day ahead of me and will need my sleep.

Great Expectations

I am registered at a professional web site called Linkedin. At this site I am a member of several groups, including an alumni group for Governors State University (GSU), where I earned my Masters of Science in Science Teaching. Through a group, members can initiate a discussion thread by posting a question or comment. Last week a comment was posted from a disgruntled alum who is upset that he spent “thousands of dollars” on an education, but can’t find a job. He claims he has sent out over 1000 applications/resumes, but has only been offered a job that pays $9/hr. His degree is in “Interdisciplinary Studies, (IDSS).”

The economy is as bad as I have ever seen in my 50+ years, many recent grads being unable to find gainful employment in their fields of study. I just can’t help but wonder what a degree in IDSS qualifies you to do. I went to the GSU website and attempted to find out what IDSS was, but after reading all the information there am still clueless. Apparently, IDDS is for students who started college at some point, but quit before finishing a degree. IDSS allows a student to use previous credits, “life experiences”, and at least 60 hours at GSU to earn a degree. Nowhere on the GSU site does it say exactly what area the 60 credits must be in. Apparently they can be in anything; so with no area of concentration it is no surprise that graduates of this program have a college degree, but no skills to land a real job.

I attach significant blame here to any university that would offer such a worthless degree and charge tuition for it. Have they no shame? I suggest he take the $9/hr job where he might actually gain some marketable skills.

The situation reminds me of a student I taught in the mid 80’s. She was brilliant, one of the best I have ever taught. After graduation, she went off to university where she planned on studying to become a doctor. I ran into her mother several years later and was surprised to find that the girl had changed her major to “Women’s Studies”, graduated, and began working in a woman’s shelter as a counselor. The mother was understandably upset, feeling her daughter had thrown away a chance to make something out of herself, and asked be to talk to the daughter. I contacted her and we had a long, interesting conversation. The young woman argued that the women she worked with needed help and she felt responsible (as a woman) to assist them. I pointed out that if she went to Med School or Law School she could be much more helpful as a doctor or Attorney/Advocate for the women at the shelter. She replied that if she went to Med School or Law School she would not be able to help these women for many more years, and they needed help now. I never saw her again and don’t know what she is doing now. Fortunately she is the exception; most promising students actually do get a degree that really qualifies them the get a job and actually help people in a meaningful way.


The expectations students have for their lives illustrates how little they know about life and how to prepare for it. Last week my homeroom class filled out a questionere concerning their “life goals.” One of the questions asked them to state their goals. Most comment were reasonable. Things like; “I want to be successful”, “I want to be healthy and happy”, and “I would like to stay religious, and keep in touch with my friends and family.” Others were not quite so realistic. One boy wanted to live in a castle. Another girl wrote, “I want a splendid, unforgettable, remarkable, perfect life.” The most interesting comment was by my worst student that period. She is in Honors Chemistry and has gotten the lowest grade on each of the first three exams—though she is not the least capable of my students. Her comment was, “I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. I want to live in a huge house, at least three floors, and have three maids, a butler, and a chef.”

She will probably end up working in a woman’s shelter.

Sometimes You Get the Bear, and Sometimes the Bear Gets You.

It is Labor Day, and I am writing this while watching a show on Scandinavian cooking. The meal he is fixing consists of cooked carrots, baked celery root, and grilled pork chops. It was served with a cool glass of beer and looked grand.

Except for Friday, when I apparently made two young ladies cry, last week was a pretty good week. The crying had nothing to do with anything I said; it was, apparently, induced by a particularly difficult homework assignment. The first girl approached me before class to inform me that she could not do several of the problems on the assignment that was due that day. She asked for some help, her eyes swelling up with tears as she spoke. Being a man, I am not very good at dealing with an upset woman. I tried to comfort her by pointing out that the problems in question were worth only a few points in a 50 point assignment. This did not seem to make her feel any better as she said, in a breaking voice, “I never wasn’t able to finish a homework assignment before—not ever.” At the end of class another girl came up to me and said that she needed help; informing me that her homework was a mess and she did not understand anything. She wanted to know if I was going to send her down from honors chemistry to a regular level class. Then she began to cry, saying that she did not want to drop down. I told her that it was too soon to make that decision and that she should wait, at least, until she took the first exam. Both girls did much worse that the average on the assignment.

I am sure that I appeared quite hard and unemotional to both young ladies. What I wanted to say to both was, “Stop! There’s no crying in Chemistry!”, but that would have been insensitive. I am not an insensitive man—even if I don’t know how to handle a crying female. I tried to comfort each; letting them know that it wasn’t as bad as they thought and that many others had trouble with the same problems. Both of these statements were lies. The problems they had trouble with were simple density calculations, and the fact that they were completely stumped by them was a sure sign that neither belongs in Honors Chemistry; as well, most other students did them without turning into jelly. If either of them does poorly on the exam Wednesday, I may have to recommend that the drop down; though, I will not demand that they do.

The main problem each had difficulty with is given below:

Oxygen gas has a density of 1.43 g/L at a given temperature and pressure. What mass of oxygen gas is contained in a spherical balloon with a diameter of 15.0 cm? The formula for the volume of a sphere is 4/3∏r3.

In order to solve this problem you have to recognize that mass can be determined by multiplying density and volume. The density is clearly given in the problem, but the volume has to be calculated by using the formula for a sphere that was given, and knowing that the radius is half the diameter. Since these are all honors students, and all of them have to be in honors math, I would expect that they could make their way through the calculation without help. While this was true for most of the students, it was not for these two girls. We covered standard density problems in class the day before. After the exam on Wednesday I will have to check for other students who might benefit from some extra help, or by dropping down.