Wk 2 - Day 5

i wasn't able to go to school today...it was one heck of a weekend...friend goes unexpectedly into the hospital, fuel pump goes out on the car after leaving the hospital friday night, stranded in wausau (i have family there, but my dogs were up in rhinelander alone)...yikes! my friend amanda had emergency surgery on friday and on saturday. she is ok...nothing life threatening, but something that needed to be treated immediately. she was supposed to be released from the hospital on sunday, but the doctor felt she needed one more day. well, i'm her ride and needed to pick her up. so, in a nutshell...that's my reason for skipping school on monday.

tuesday's lesson was rather boring, but the video was very informative. mrs. s and ms. b had the students watch a video from the early 80's about the scientific method. mrs. s said that if she had something more current and just as informative, she'd switch it out in a heartbeat...but she works with what she has at hand. after the video the students took notes on six vocabulary words and that was it. mrs. s reassures me that she rarely has days like this...she loves hands-on activities, but the video and note-taking needed to be done.

i had an interesting conversation with mrs. s...i made a comment on the lab handout and how everything is nicely laid out for the students and that it's basically a fill-in-the-answer worksheet. mind you...i didn't say it in such a way as to judge her work, we had a very good conversation. she stated that in her early years of teaching she had the students write out their lab reports, but she had a very high failure rate. she was basically yelled at and told to "dumb it down." looking at the lab report, i feel that the students are very much spoon-fed and aren't held accountable for very much at all and mrs. s agreed. i wasn't able to finish my conversation with her, but finished it with ms. b. i asked if there was a possibility to start off with the lab reports as a fill-in-the-blank worksheet, but throughout the semester and year...wean the students slowly off of it so that by the end of the year or much sooner...they're completely writing their own. ms. b didn't really say anything for it or against it, but she has a majority of special needs students and students at risk...so for her, it might just be best to leave as it is currently. however, if i were mrs. s i'd give it a go.