Sometimes Pocket Protectors Are The Way To Go

I prefer to live an unencumbered life. I never understood why women chose to carry purses and bags, when pockets are so much easier. I mean, they're attached to your body by virtue of the existence of hips, and with the right cargo pants, you could carry the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion on your person at all times (not that I speak from experience or anything...). However, I do have some sense of fashion, if you wish to call it that. I've never willingly wore a waist-pouch/fanny pack because they are ridiculous and make you a target for bullies and lowlifes (again, not speaking from experience). And I would suppose pocket protectors would fall in the same line, those articles clothes that instantly pigeon-holes you in a certain social class...
...like overalls...
...or hooker shoes.
But I cannot help but deny my true dorkdom. Running around class all day, tending to hopeless children who don't know how to fold paper in half, or use a straw to transfer a liquid, the shirt-pocket has become my best friend. Pencils, markers, dry erase pens, rulers, scissors, straws, chopsticks, bags of apples have all found their way in to my shirt pocket (this was just one day). By the end of the day, my shirt pocket is so laden down with the tools of my trade that my shirt starts to sag in a rather unflattering manner. Here's what my shirt looked like half-way through the day today:

The tally is three dry erase pens, a black ball point pen, a mechanical pencil, a mini-ruler, two black Sharpie pens, my name tag, a clarinet reed and mouthpiece (I had a bet with one of the girls that I could play clarinet. She owes me $10. I intend to collect), and finally a small foam plane. Why the small foam plane you ask? Well, one of my darling students, A--, came to school today, like any other day. However, today of all days, his mother forgot to come and give him his medication. Medication that he desperately needs to calm down. Medicine I really wish he had today. So while he was throwing his plane around my classroom while I was trying to get everyone settled, I crept up behind him and snatched it out of the air, refusing to return it to him unless he settled down and kept quiet the rest of the class. In all seriousness, I'm told he has a behavioral condition where he doesn't understand consequences and cannot process things like that, so I wasn't surprised he was running around 5 minutes later.

But yes, I love my shirt-pocket. It has served me so well, and perhaps I'll get it a nice pocket protector as a treat. All I need is a slide-rule and I'm a nerd from the 70's. Home sweet home.
I do seriously want a slide rule. I think I know how they work, in theory. Either that or an astrolabe, but I think slide rules are easier to procure and operate.

Today was hell. The only saving grace was that I got paid for my first full week (I thought it was just a part time gig, but when you add up the actual hours, it's a little more that 3/4 time). And even though the Gov'ment took a huge chunk of my hard earned money for silly things like Medicare and Social Security, it's nice to be rewarded. But, boy, did I have to work for that money today. I don't know what it was today. Perhaps it was a particularly exciting weekend with Father's Day and all. Perhaps there was too much sugar in their canned peaches. I don't know, but they were horrible. Absolutely horrible. I did a lot of yelling and pointing. A lot of time-outs in the corner and "this is your special chair. You will sit in this chair for the rest of class. I don't want to hear you talk. At all." At which point I would drag the chair to the farthest corner. At one point, the youngest group took their customary bathroom/water break during my class (I've learned to schedule in this disruption), leaving only 4 students in the room with me. They decided it would be a good idea to hide under the desks and yell surprise when the other kids came back. I told them several times "no". I even physically "removed" them from under the desks. But they would not be denied their surprise. I'll leave the ensuing screaming, shouting, running and punching to your imagination (no, I did not punch any of the kids. Not to say I didn't think about it).

Today we did chromatography with paper towels and various pens and markers. I had the older groups in the morning, which was inspiring, if not a little messy. They understood the whole deal with polarity and travel distances along the chromatography strip. Even the younger 1st/2nd graders understood it to a certain extent. But, damn, was this messy. I thought, okay, markers are pretty clean. Ha, I have so much to learn. Because the instruction "just dip the tip", an illustration on the board, and an up close, one-on-one demo by yours truly is simply not clear enough to convey the message "don't dunk the whole thing in the alcohol", the ink went everywhere. I have things to clean up this week. Pretty much every single desk. Goody.

Things to look forward to at the end of the week:
We'll be starting biology, with adaptation and evolution games at the end of the week. Haven't done this since Bio Honors with Liem in 9th grade, but I think I remember everything.

Friday we have an open house, for which I must prepare a video of sorts, and some other presentation of sorts. Followed immediately by a sleepover for the older kids. Luckily most of my kids aren't sleeping over (thank god. I guess they came to the same realization that sleeping in a cafeteria is not fun. I know what they drop on the floor. And I know no one mops the floor either). I'm told I'm not supposed to sleep since I'm chaperoning. We'll see how that goes. As long as I can find an internet connection, I think I can manage. Either that or I can spend my time tormenting the kids. I have a black hooded cape and scary masks. I'm sure I can think of something to do. Don't worry, it's nearly impossible for little kids to have heart attacks. They have been known to wet themselves though.

Science Is Messy

This week is a whole lot of Chemistry, with some astronomy thrown in at the end if I run out of demos.

Monday, we did invisible ink with lemon juice, and I tried it again with vinegar today, since I was told it should also work. I'm amazed at how delinquent and rotten some of these kids are. I gave them each a half sheet of paper to write or draw whatever they wished with the invisible ink. I had three or four choose to write "doo doo", another drew an what he told me was a decapitated body, and my favorite student of all, G----, told me he was going to write "die" all over his paper, and proceeded to line his paper with "DI". He might be a psychotic little demon spawn, but I don't think it would be very hard to catch him.

I was showing some of the younger kids the bottle of vinegar I had. It occurred to me that some of these kids might not know what some of these things are, so I try to show them as much as possible and expose them to as much as possible (not in that way). I passed around the bottle of vinegar and wafted (I'm such a good chemist) it in front of them to smell. Most of them shrieked and told me it smelled bad, but all the Filippino kids told me it smelled really good. That's my bit of racial humor for the day. I'm done. Except I do notice the Asian kids are a lot better at science. There, now I'm done.

Today I attempted to make gak, or slime, or silly putty, or whatever you want to call it. Glue and Borax, pretty simple. The Borax acts as a cross-linking agent for the glue polymers, which I think is downright nifty. Anywho, I tried to explain why the gak forms as it does, with the cross-linking explanation. I had the kids line up and form polymer chains by linking arms. It's been a while since I've been around little kids, but it didn't occur to me that linking arms with someone of the other sex would be that much of an issue. It was. After 10 minutes of yelling and crying and sorting and bargaining, we formed our polymer chains. I asked them if it was easy or hard to move around in these polymer chains. Most said it was easy, I got a few who said it was "easy-hard" or "hard-easy". I generally ignore these kids. Then to demonstrate cross-linking, I took a roll of tape and taped the polymer-kids together. It's a very vivid and useful teaching model, to actually cross-link the kids together, but as much as it was for them to learn why the gak forms the way it does, it was also for me. By this point in the day, I was tired, stressed, a little pissed at certain kids, and it just felt very good to tape those kids together, to make sure they couldn't run around and knock my things over (the floor is now green thanks to some not so soluble food coloring). A brief moment of catharsis goes a long way.

Now, earlier that morning I had tried the gak recipe to make sure it worked and the proportions were right. It turned out fantastically, and I thought I was set for a pretty easy day. Very, very wrong. The first class I tried it with used a different glue (though it still said Elmer's All-Purpose Glue), and none of them worked. Having a class of 18 disappointed and bored kids is not a good feeling. I frantically spent the recess trying to figure out what the hell went wrong and why nothing was working. I settled on that it must have been the glue was a different type than labeled, or it was too old and the polymer had degraded too far. Either way, after a frantic scramble around the school scooping up any Elmer's glue I could find, the rest of the gak making went fine.

I've also learned children are sneaky. They're supposed to write in their journals after every class session (though 50% of them never have their journal with them). They always want to know how many sentences they have to write. I usually ask them how old they are, and tell them to write 5 regardless of the answer. Most don't really know what a sentence is other than that it ends with a period. So usually a kid will bring up their journal for me to check, I'll tell them that this is only one long sentence. They'll go back, pretend to write more, and bring it back to me. The entry will be the same single long sentence, but dotted occasionally by an additional 4 periods. I'm not teaching English, but I feel the need to spend time with these kids and tell them what a sentence is. Subject. Predicate. As simple as that. Blah blah blah, is not a sentence. Writing "I had fun" is nice and all, but you can't write that 5 times and count that as 5 sentences.

Today was perhaps the sternest I've ever been with the kids. I hate disciplining because it's not in my kind hearted nature to yell and scold, but some of these kids need it really bad. I've begun to pull the "if you don't be quiet, we can't do the experiment" card when they're too noisy. I've also just sat and waited until they decide independently to be quiet. But today, I had to kick it up. I haven't yelled yet, but I can feel myself getting there with some of these kids. I recently reread Machiavelli's The Prince. Contrary to popular belief, Machiavelli said that it is always preferable to seek a populace's adoration and respect, and that such a bond formed from love would produce the most loyal and obedient subjects. But, if and when such a method fails, then fear is the way to go. It's either complete love and adoration, or complete fear. No middle road. I've been trying the first method with these kids, and it works for the most part. Everybody loves Mr. Science. But it's never a bad thing to have Mr. Hyde waiting in the wings to pop out as necessary. I think I'll keep him on retainer for the rest of this program.

And there were some rewards, small though they might be. This program put out it's first newsletter for the parents, and there was a blurb about me (I was the only afternoon teacher they wrote a blurb about!):
A popular class in the afternoon is our Kool Science class taught by Mr. Kelsey Sakimoto. "Mr. Kelsey" or "Mr. Science", as he is known, is a Punahou graduate and currently attending Yale University pursuing a major in chemical engineering. Mr. Sakimoto has varied interests, like playing the accordion, erhu, and many types of woodwind instruments. Mr. Sakimoto relates that his first experience with The Summer Concept is "a lot of work but definitely worth it!"

Now I know I blow a lot of smoke out my ass, but I honestly meant that last sentiment. Though a pain, I can find the small rewards in this job, and cling to those moments. And, hey, it's always nice to be recognized.