Monday, January 14, 2008

It's Monday....AGAIN

Jen and I tried to meet at the gym this morning at 5:30. Neither of us made it out of bed. It's so sad because we both know how much better we feel when we work out, but just can't get up. Anyway, I am currently trying to figure out how I can make myself go to bed earlier so I will get up and go!

Our students have a day off on Friday, and because my students are at their elective classes, I currently have made it through one day of this week. I am really ready to have about 5 straight weeks of nothing but regular teaching, which won't happen. We just really need to get stuff done and are not really accomplishing that.

Today one of the students asked "why do we have to learn science? I mean, it won't be related to our careers." I just looked at her. Science is not my favorite subject to teach, but I don't tell the kids that. I just do the best I can. I honestly had no idea what to tell her, other than something lame like "how do you know you won't use science in your career?" Talk about frustrating!!! I can find valid reasons for math all the time, and although I want to find the value in science, I couldn't.

Any advice out there? This is when teaching middle school gets really tough, because the kids know when something has value. They have to see the value before they are willing to learn.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

For your student that asked why they need to use science, find a science lesson that deals with cooking, or making an art project, where the "science" is hidden but it is there. That is how I got my alternative school kids to click with it last school year. There are a couple of good lesson plans out there dealing with this, if you need help locating them let me know and I can go on a search for you.