Chemistry, Meditation and Bill Nye...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     A tough week...had exams this week and more so now than ever before it seems that we have students stressed to record levels...pretty much to the point at which it is unhealthy.  Someone told me that a class or a test does not create mental illness, however, I still need to ask myself, what part of this should I own?  How can I help students?  It would be one thing if it were just my class, chemistry or our school, but the more I look, the more the numbers are going up across the country and even in Great Britain.  Here is a crazy idea...students are more "connected" now than ever before.  Facebook, twitter, snap chat, instagram...and on and on.  Students even sleep with their phones.  They (the phones and the students) are never "off".  I wonder how many people even could say when the last time their phone was turned off and more than 50 feet away from them?  So here is the idea (not mine)...when a person's brain always has to respond, it causes stress.  Stress causes depression and depression can lead to further mental breakdown.  So, the question is, what do we do?  There is no way people will let go of the phone.  Maybe, they can "shut" their brain off for just a few minutes...and practice "mindfullness".  It was introduced by John Kabat-Zin.  It is now being used in major corporations, med schools, hospitals and, you guessed it, schools.  It can easily be started with just 10 minutes of work per day.  The following two Ted talks do a much better job of explaining this than I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9KhDjGGHCk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlk6xD_xAQ

I also learned something about "proportional reasoning".  I kind of intuitively knew that if a student struggled with proportional reasoning, they would struggle in chemistry.  As my wife said, when I tried to explain it to her, "It sounds like it is pattern recognition."  It is.  I had some students show signs of struggle with proportional reasoning problems.  I noticed that this was predicted by the Lawson test on scientific reasoning they took at the begining of the year.  I went back and checked.  Most, but not all, students who struggled with some of the proportional reasoning problems, struggled with the last giant problem on the test.  Those who aced the problem on the test seemed to do really well on the Lawson test.  My hope is to pay better attention to the Lawson test and work at figuring out better ways of teaching proportional reasoning.  I am aleady working at talking to other teachers and professors.

    I also heard an interesting podcast by Bill Nye, Neil Tyson and Sir Richard Attenboruogh.  They were talking about what the key is to personally engage people in science.  Seeing as how these three are probably the three most engaging science teachers alive, I perked up and listened.  First, you need passion (check).  Second, you have to know your stuff (I am trying).  Third, you need personally take time to look the person in the eye and invite them to learn science.  This is where I struggle.  Sometimes, with 100 + students, it is tough to personally engage each and every one...but it does not mean I cannot try.  My goal this week...every day make sure I try to talk to the students I come in contact with and attempt to convince them they are the most important scientist in the world....here comes the new semester....