The Twilight Years

[msjen]

Curriculum development, like many things, is a cycle. When I first started my job, we were towards the beginning of the cycle. I got to see many projects develop from an idea ("Let's write a unit for third graders about light!") all the way to a finished product ("Wow, we wrote a 600-page behemoth of a teacher's guide. Could this break someone's

Comments

[jgcr]

yay! *applause*

[ammonoid]

I don't think I or any of the grad students at school could calmly discuss Uranus. I wonder what the people at NASA or JPL do, the ones who study Uranus. "Oh, what do you do?" Oh I"m a scientist that studies Uranus. HAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry I'm not as mature as your 13 yr olds.

[ammonoid]

Oh and:

First of all, there were thirty-seven kids in the class.

When I went to DC public school in the 80s there were 35-40 kids in every class.

[msjen]

I'm not saying it's not uncommon, just that it shouldn't be!

[jetspeaks]

Yeah, well, at least they don't study YOUR MOM'S anus.

OK, that didn't work.

[jwz]

I heard somewhere once that Urine-us was the original pronunciation, and people started using Your-anus to avoid the pee jokes. Oops.

[msjen]

They should have just named it Planet Herschel, after the "pervert" in question who discovered it.

[heresiarch]

maybe you could instead use Ouranos, the Greek version of the planet's name.... fortunately pronounced "Oor-ahnos" and not "our anus" :P.

[ousel]

I vote Greek!

[msjen]

Yes, certainly that would have saved us all a lot of trouble.

[hep]

if you guys ever need a school or classroom to test on, or a couple middle schoolers to run ideas by, i can lend you my middle schoolers (i have two now!) or i can ask our classrooms here in our town (very small and very helpful)

[hep]

also, i teach photography now to both the elementary school and the middle school, and i have experienced both of the kinds of classroom environments you often describe in your lessons. at times i keep myself calm by saying things like "jen totally is able to control these types of children and she is just as short as you are so it CAN BE DONE!" hehe!

[msjen]

Thanks! Glad to be of service. Personally, I always think of my friend L., who is two inches shorter than me and teaches high school in inner-city Boston. When her students get unruly, she actually *barks* at them. She's not sure why that works, but it does.

[msjen]

Okay! I may take you up on that. :)