I just kicked a student out of lab. Actually, I removed him from lab last period, during chemistry lab. The group of students in chemistry tend to get a bit rowdy, so before lab, I warned them that ANY messing around, no matter how minor, will get them removed from lab. The lab is pretty simple, but requires students to burn magnesium metal over a laboratory burner. Anyway, 35 minutes into lab, the student in question decides he will start making saliva bubbles and project them onto the lab bench, his lab partner, or any other object within view. Well, needless to say, he was removed.
I hate to second guess myself, but I believe I was right in my actions. The saliva bubbles were not large, but essentially I view it as spitting. Definitely gross. Well, he claims other students were doing the same (which I don't believe), and if that was the case, I caught HIM red-handed. After being removed, he pouted, says he wants to move to another school, etc.
Earlier in the year, I removed him from lab for "punching" another student in lab. I put "punching" in quotes, because they were attempting to see who could withstand the most pain. (I should say, both involved were removed, not just the one.) As they were punching each other, they would occasionally fall backwards, or brace themselves on the lab bench, a lab bench with beakers on hotplates, and students trying to filter solutions.
Most of the students did not finish lab, so I have to determine if I let him back in. His partner is very capable of finishing the lab by himself. I will have to think on it.
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I'm extremely tired. Tuesday, as I mentioned in my previous post, was Parent/Teacher conferences. It was supposed to run from 4 to 7 pm. By 7:45, my last set of parents had left my room. So, my prediction of a 14 hour day was correct (if you include the 2 hours of commuting.) Because it ran long though, I didn't get home until close to 9 pm, where I then had to eat something really quick, and then get to bed, so I could be at work by 7:40 the next day. As a result, I have not really felt up to par these last two days.
The good part about Parent/Teacher conferences is that I saw well over twenty sets of parents, representing about 35 of my students. Most of the meetings went very well, there was one meeting, that I did not think went as well as all others. My question though is this, why is it that the parents that show up for Parent/Teacher conferences are the parents of the good students? I saw very few parents of students having problems. However I did see a few, which is quite an improvement over past years.
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I might have to stay late tonight. I have been recruited to help some of the BPA (Business Professionals of America) students on their projects for the upcoming regional competition. Specifically, I'm supposed to help the students that designing web sites. It seems that I'm the only staff member that has used any sort of web publishing software, in particular, FrontPage 2003. I took a class on it this summer, so hopefully I can remember the basics of the program. I must say, using Frontpage 2003 is much easier than coding your website by hand (which I have done before, and is not much fun.) I just have to remember to teach the students about tables. I know many of them want to put all sorts of glitz in their website, but I'm going to try to get them to do the basics. Hopefully though, I won't be too late getting home tonight, as my wife also has a meeting tonight and will definitely be getting home late.
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Today's happenings:
- ESCI: Finished our Igneous Rock Identification Lab. Most of the students are now starting to figure out the difference between intrusive and extrusive rocks!
- CHEM: Lab. Turning magnesium metal into magnesium oxide. The lab walks them through the procedure, and then how to determine the empirical formula from the data.
- LSCI: Test over classification, scientific names, biogenesis, and spontaneous generation. I think they will do pretty well.
- PSCI: Test over Mechanical energy, thermal energy, temperature, and specific heat.
- BIO: They have a vocabulary quiz, and then will start to construct a phylogenic tree out of random shapes.
- ADV BIO: Just working on chapter 6 vocabulary. The chapter is about muscles cells, their structures and how they function.
Hopefully I will have time to post tomorrow. I just hope the rest of the day is pretty easy.
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