"the pretious life-blood of a mafter fpirit"

A typical day this summer:

4:40 awake, a little worried about having enough solved problems for my class

7:40 after prepping some physics Powerpoint slides and selecting some good optics worksheets and waves worksheets from two public sites I like I tried a different subway combo to Williamsburg.  Instead of A Train to L Train I tried 1 Local to 3 Express to L Train.  Every train boarding was perfect: waited only 20 seconds for each of the three trains -- excellent omen.

10 am - noon    Taught a 2 hour block of summer school physics. Kids a little antagonistic. They're unhappy about the quizzes being difficult and are worried they will flunk the class and get no credit.  I'm worried too. We try playing jazz music during seatwork time.  Except on my iPod nano shuffle, under the category JAZZ the iPod plays the 30 minute Atom Heart Mother Suite by Pink Floyd.  Later we get in a discussion about whether Sun Ra is dead -- I keep this short and redirect them to the exciting worksheet.

I keep second guessing myself on how to make it clearer for this summer school class.  The audience and curriculum are new to me:  low-level physics for people who have a lot of trouble with physics and algebra.   If I ever re-teach this class it should be better but it's taxing the first time through, blazing the trail.

130  Writing a quiz during a drizzle for an hour in Woodside (Irish part of Queens) at a cafe that was the site of an unhappy lunch date in 2004. Alone this time; pleasanter.

245 First meeting with a sympatico tutoring student: a sharp tenth grader who just needs to bump up his chemistry regents test (the New York State test) a few points.  We study Acids and Bases for an hour and a half. 

430 Two more hours of class prep at a tiny Queens library with noisy 8 year olds and lots of Bengali titles on the shelves.  I feel impatient hitting the special format keyswhile typing math formulas into the worksheets.

700 Two hours of prep at the iconic New York Public Library (the big stone lions library).  I check out a book of Carole Shields short stories, a Joe Sacco graphic biography (sort of Art Speigelman style) and a book of essays about the pursuit of disconnectedness called Hamlet's Blackberry.  The author notes that the medieval PDA was a wax tablet.  Montaigne raved about his supposedly.

I pay for a lost book -- $25 (second time this decade that I lost a boring book that I hated on a train).

The inscription over the door in this worlds-awesomest-reading-room reads "A good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a mafter fpirit, imbalm'd and treafur'd up on purpofe to a life beyond life."

 

Thanks for the image: Martin Hyatt and Horace Jeffery Hodges

Comments

[Denise]

In order to fill the holes in my education, I buy or borrow books on physics, math, philosophy ect. I am one of those low level mathmatics people that finds physics and quantem physics interesting. I am of the opnion that anyone can learn anything as soon as you or they figure out how they learn. I took seminars on learning styles when I taught my kids at home. My daughter and I are visual learners and my son is a tactile learner. Hence, through hand on experiments my son at 5 was learning 3rd and 4th grade science. At 4 my daughter could distinguish artistic styles such as post imperssionism and cubist.
Maybe make your physics more relevant to real life? I often found myself irritated by algebra because I never found a "real" use for it.

[Denise]

One of my favorite scenes from my kids- while lugging my kids around the DIA in a double stroller, Abi at 4 stood up, pointed at Van Gogh's picture and said " Mommy! Van Gogh! Post impressionism!" The adults stood there slack jawed in amazement. I bought her a Van Gogh watercolor paint book at the gift store.

[Horace Jeffery Hodges]

Just noticed the hat tip. You're welcome.

Jeffery Hodges

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