School: So this trimester i definitely do feel a little more at ease with the French and the content (we're finally done with electrical physics!), but i'm still running into challenges. I don't like to write tests until i've taught the material, meaning that i'm typically giving tests a week later than i should. For example, I am giving a test in each subject this coming week, and then next week they have there cumulative exams. Really, tests a week apart don't really help anyone, but here we are.
Something that has actually really bothered me these past two weeks is how mechanical physics is taught. I'm not going to bore you too much with the details, but it's kind of ass-backwards. In the US we learn that gravity is an acceleration and that falling bodies ('bodies' used in the scientific sense, not a literal human body falling) fall at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s. So their speed increases by about 10 meters every second. Here, they are taught that gravity is simply a proportion between weight and mass (weight=mass*gravity). They never hear the word acceleration, the never learn about any other sort of acceleration, although they do learn about forces (the formula for a force is F=mass*acceleration). So, i can't even teach the formula for what they supposed to be learning. All of this frustration might be coming solely because this is one my favorite parts of physics (and quite honestly, is the basis of everything to come), but when i think about it, i think it's more that i'm being asked to do a job and i'm not doing it well. I know as i'm teaching the students that what i'm saying i don't believe to be true (no, gravity does not equal 10N/kg. that unit doesn't even make sense!) But to do it the 'right way' would take too much time, and we have a lot of other material to cover that doesn't necessarily build on this.
When i asked another prof if they ever learn the material more indepth, he said yes, a couple years from now. I then asked him, why bother teaching it the wrong now, only to teach it again later. His response was that the students are just to dumb to learn it now (very typical teacher response by the way, i really should write a blog about attitude toward education here). I know there are probably examples of this in the US curriculum, but i can't think of any at the moment... So, for the benefit of the big picture of the moment, i'll skim through things hope the kids understand the basics. But i won't like it.
Math is going a little better, but not perfect. We are learning vectors right now, which isn't easy for anyone at the debut. I have to admit i did get frustrated with them the other day, because i thought they were doing ok because they didn't have too many questions. But really they didn't have questions because they were too lost to know what to ask. I know that happens to all of us, but it felt like even more of a blow because i thought things were going well in that class compared to physics. And now this week we lost two school days all of a sudden, so we have less time before there last test and final (which, as stated before, are too close together...) So, i guess this is just a lot of the 'end of the term' craziness of trying to get everything done!
Sounds like typical teacher issues to me! We are always critiquing what we are going to do, what we have done and just how we want to change it for "next time".
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