A great day at school is hard to beat. Surrounded by a room full of SCIENTISTS, developing their own electricity experiements, gathering data, charting, and questioning is awesome; so exciting for them, and so exciting for me. Electromagnets are FUN. It's more fun because they know how to chart their data and how to talk about the data now, and it leads them to ask more questions.
On top of that, we're heading into multi-digit multiplication territory now, which is heady stuff, and all the hard-nosed, no-excuses, you'll-do-one-hundred-basic-facts-problems-every-night-on-top-of-your-other-homework demands that I put on the kids are really paying off. They are becoming competent, which leads to confidence. They don't complain anymore about the 100 problems, either. The other day I told them that the only homework they had was the 100 problems, and they cheered.
I've got one of those amarylis bulbs just starting to grow in my room right now. They take a while to root and start growing. HOWEVER, once they take root, they can grow up to 5 inches A DAY. Before you know it, I'm going to have 4-6 enormous blossoms opening up on the window sill. I'm always seeing analogies, and this amarylis one is aimed at a couple of kids in my room. I had them both last year, too, so we go back a while. They have exhibited the same growth pattern. I have watched them go from insecure, "helpless" and uninvolved to comanding, competent, and confident. I can see the seriousness of their thinking on their faces, read it in their writing, and confirm it in the scores on their tests. These kids are on a roll, and the best part is that I KNOW that they can feel it, too. They are happier, calmer, more helpful to others, and more patient. They've made themselves into LEARNERS and it's made all the difference in how they think about themselves and their place in the world. It's a quickening that is palpable in the room.
Oh, no. Teachers don't do it for the money. We do it for the blossoms!
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