In one of my classes today, I gave the first lesson, which tries to set the tone for the year: we're going to have fun stuff, but we have to be disciplined when we need to get things done. So I send them outside for 5 minutes to get "something that has smaller things that they can't see with the naked eye". I usually have to explain this a couple times, in different ways, but they get it and go outside. 90% of the objects are leaves or flowers (which makes me wonder what this lesson is doing to the trees around here), but the other 10% ends up being creative and sometimes way "outside the box".
Today, one student got up when I asked him to demonstrate his object, grabbed my water bottle and said that the microbes inside couldn't be seen. I was thoroughly impressed, but wanted to see how far I could push him. I told him that there certainly were not microbes in my water because it had been filtered. So he grabbed another water bottle from a student and held it up. I agreed that it had "microbes", but asked him to think harder and have him tell me what the microbes and plants had in common - but he was stumped. And in a triumph of "Boy stands up, girl knows the answer", a girl finally gave me "cells". For the most part, it's been girls getting the questions right and the boys trying miserably. But there seems to be one kiss-up boy in every class who tries to answer every other question and shush people. I guess it's pretty similar to the American system after all...here in my town at least.
Peace
John
