Off to the U S of A!

Mid-term is nigh.
I'm off to the Big Apple with she-who-must-be-obeyed for the week. I foresee tantrums in shopping malls as I tend to get cranky after six hours looking at guchi whatyoumacallems and jimmychouchous.
However there is always The New York Hall of Science to keep me busy. I'm bringing the camcorder to tape some of the interactive exhibits, and hopefully put them online. I've contacted the museum and they're okay to allow this.
Stay tuned.

Cool transition year project

"The Way Things Go" is a wonderful short film of a chain reaction put together in some large warehouse.
You can see a short clip of it here
Anyways, I show this to the troops any time I need to kill ten minutes or maybe at the end of term. I usually end up having to pry them out of teh classroom.

At some stage I was asked 'why can't we do that'?, and I thought 'Well why not'?
So recently I gave the task to my transition years, and they have taken to it like no other project or experiment they have ever done (in physics at least).
They have to come up with their own design, use their own resources, it can be as simple or as complex as they wish.
In fact as an engineering project it is very useful because those who initially wanted everything in it, quickly realised how unpractical this is.
There is also serious teamwork involved, and whose who plan in advance tend to do best.

The most successful so far have been the teams who go for short simple parts.
They can they put the final project together inside teh lab or outside in a field. We video it, and they vote for the best project.

I used to be uncomfortable with this, primarily because I was handing over the class to the students, and therefore I had less control, but now I can see so many benifits that I would be very upset if I couldn't use this any more.

So for any other physics teachers out there (and there's no reason why it has to be just physics) why not give it a go?

We could always compare projects and have an inter-school challenge!
You don't need any equipment, budget, or even much preparation on your part; it is, as they say, a win-win situation.

A strange thing happened last week.
I was teaching transition year physics when I got into a row with a student over something petty.
I was in bad form to begin with, chasing my tail to get experiments in order for the various classes.
The student in question waisn't doing a whole lot wrong, just playing with a broken spring.
Anyway, long story short, I had a go at him about breaking equipment which wasn't his. He claimed it was broken to begin with, but because this gentleman didn't exactly have an exemplary reputation I chose not to believe him and continued to give out to him.

Previous to this there had been a nice atmosphere in the class, but afterwards there was a noticeable tension.
Anyway, halfway through the class, while they were working on their experiment, I had a think about it and realised that I was way out of order.
The student in all probability did nothing wrong.

I figured that because I had given out to him in public, I had to apologise in public, so I stopped the class right there and then and apologised.
Know what happened?
The class gave me a round of applause.
It was rather touching, and I suspect that the student in question doesn't get many apologies from teachers in the course of his school day.
All in all, an interesting experience.

I love my job.

I teach Physics and Science in a private second level school in Dublin.
It's a good school to work in.

I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else; I like students, I like helping people.
I am not particularly clever but I know enough to realise that we are living in extraordinory times.
And I get to combine all this in one job.

I have classes in Physics and Applied Maths at leaving cert and fifth year, and they are all a joy to teach.

It's always bugged me that we teachers are a very closeted group. We close the door to our classroom and we become kings of our own kingdom. This causes all sort of problems.


Anyway, this is an attempt to address this in some small way.
I hope this to be a very honest description of my job, warts and all.
Time will tell.

I have a website, but due to lack of expertise it's progressing very slowly.

One day at a time.