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Apr. 1st, 2004
It's all in the subject line. I got up leisurely, sat around on the computer, got dressed and took myself outside. It was workshop day today. I think it may only be public independent-type schools that do things like this - basically, Upper Two kids (that's Year 5, I believe) come and visit for the day, and are shown around and looked after and even given a few lessons, with the idea being that they'll go home, tell their parents they liked it and had a good time, and later this year, get hold of the application forms and apply to take the Merchants' entrance exam. I never went to workshop day, I don't know why, but this was apparently my year for helping out.
I got in at about one, ran into two of my Drama Festival formlings, and lingered a bit before toddling up to the labs. I wasn't on the original list, so had the choice of which lab I wanted to be in. Unfortunately, before I could make that choice, I got hijacked by Mrs Williams for her lab. She is just as annoying as ever. She made me put on a labcoat and safety goggles before she'd even let me speak, thus ensuring I missed the brief rundown of what we had to show the kids. Therefore, thinking she'd make it easy for me, she made me work with the guides. The guides, ordinary schoolgirls who show the little ones around, turned out to be thirds. There were four of them, and they were annoying as all hell. It was absolutely impossible to work with them, because having done Chemistry for a year, they naturally considered themselves experts. At least Mrs Williams later acknowledged that I had drawn the short straw.
However, when she said that they were one short in the other lab, I jumped at the chance and moved across. It was Mrs Colvin running this lab, and she was much more sensible, as she always is. After listening to my tale of woe, she gave me a handful of Smarties, and when the kids came in, she made sure I didn't get the guides. Instead, I got two small people - Nikita and Katie. I asked Nikita, "Why are you wearing a name sticker saying 'Ellie?'"
"We swapped," she said, very shyly, and I took a deep breath and began. The practical (if you can call it that) was designed to answer the question: what is a chemical reaction? Which was what I explained first. "You see, it's something that can't be reversed. If you put an egg in the pan and scramble it, is there any way for us to change it back into a raw egg?"
They liked that analogy. They loved the Bunsen burner. "Why is it blue?" asked Katie. (I think she still associates blue with cold). I turned the flame yellow and passed my hand through it, to her wide-eyed surprise. It was a good demonstration. Following that, I showed them the test-tubes. We had two experiments to do. The first one involved test-tubes containing various things - magnesium ribbon, copper foil, ammonium chloride, zinc oxide, copper sulphate - all easy, safe things for them to do. They loved the magnesium, and carefully wrote down "it disapeard and turned white" and they weren't averse to any of the others. At the end of it, Nikita confided in me, "I really like Chemistry," and then, "Why can't we do this at our school?"
"Whatever secondary school you go to, you will do this," I promised, and went running off to Mrs Colvin. "I'm sorry I can't remember how to do flame tests please give me a five minute tutorial!"
She tutted. "Oh, Iona." And then came with me to actually conduct the flames tests for me, which was very nice of her. We had wires and more chemicals, and we showed them lithium burning red, copper burning blue-green, barium burning apple green, potassium burning lilac. They loved them. Mrs Colvin then explained what chemical symbols are and why sodium (natrium) and potassium (kalium) are Na and K respectively.
Why am I going into all of this in so much detail? Because I so enjoyed teaching them, and really liked seeing their faces light up at magnesium burning or the revelation that sodium chloride is table salt. They were both very cute and rather clever. Even Mrs Colvin thought so, and she's never been known for how much she likes kids. While they were doing the flame tests, I noticed the green copper flame burning white in the middle, and absently wondered why that was so. Apparently it's to do with the element's emission spectra exhibiting in the flame. The electrons changing levels cause the distinct signature. I was sort of pleased; she certainly didn't have to teach me that, and it was in a sense all coming round again, as I'd been teaching all afternoon and was now getting a bit of free education for myself.
We were all sorry to see the kids go, but managed to clean the benches in five minutes flat, and I went off home feeling rather pleased with the world. I had to tutor this evening as well - Tara this time - and that was strangely satisfying too. Tara, as I may have said, is much harder to teach. Her doing maths reminds me of myself attempting to dance - she forgets things, does them in the wrong order, and stumbles. As I said later, it's pure bad luck that the fact I can't dance doesn't matter, and the fact she finds maths difficult does. In any case, I managed to teach her enlargement with a negative scale factor and began on quadratics again.
A good day, overall.
I got in at about one, ran into two of my Drama Festival formlings, and lingered a bit before toddling up to the labs. I wasn't on the original list, so had the choice of which lab I wanted to be in. Unfortunately, before I could make that choice, I got hijacked by Mrs Williams for her lab. She is just as annoying as ever. She made me put on a labcoat and safety goggles before she'd even let me speak, thus ensuring I missed the brief rundown of what we had to show the kids. Therefore, thinking she'd make it easy for me, she made me work with the guides. The guides, ordinary schoolgirls who show the little ones around, turned out to be thirds. There were four of them, and they were annoying as all hell. It was absolutely impossible to work with them, because having done Chemistry for a year, they naturally considered themselves experts. At least Mrs Williams later acknowledged that I had drawn the short straw.
However, when she said that they were one short in the other lab, I jumped at the chance and moved across. It was Mrs Colvin running this lab, and she was much more sensible, as she always is. After listening to my tale of woe, she gave me a handful of Smarties, and when the kids came in, she made sure I didn't get the guides. Instead, I got two small people - Nikita and Katie. I asked Nikita, "Why are you wearing a name sticker saying 'Ellie?'"
"We swapped," she said, very shyly, and I took a deep breath and began. The practical (if you can call it that) was designed to answer the question: what is a chemical reaction? Which was what I explained first. "You see, it's something that can't be reversed. If you put an egg in the pan and scramble it, is there any way for us to change it back into a raw egg?"
They liked that analogy. They loved the Bunsen burner. "Why is it blue?" asked Katie. (I think she still associates blue with cold). I turned the flame yellow and passed my hand through it, to her wide-eyed surprise. It was a good demonstration. Following that, I showed them the test-tubes. We had two experiments to do. The first one involved test-tubes containing various things - magnesium ribbon, copper foil, ammonium chloride, zinc oxide, copper sulphate - all easy, safe things for them to do. They loved the magnesium, and carefully wrote down "it disapeard and turned white" and they weren't averse to any of the others. At the end of it, Nikita confided in me, "I really like Chemistry," and then, "Why can't we do this at our school?"
"Whatever secondary school you go to, you will do this," I promised, and went running off to Mrs Colvin. "I'm sorry I can't remember how to do flame tests please give me a five minute tutorial!"
She tutted. "Oh, Iona." And then came with me to actually conduct the flames tests for me, which was very nice of her. We had wires and more chemicals, and we showed them lithium burning red, copper burning blue-green, barium burning apple green, potassium burning lilac. They loved them. Mrs Colvin then explained what chemical symbols are and why sodium (natrium) and potassium (kalium) are Na and K respectively.
Why am I going into all of this in so much detail? Because I so enjoyed teaching them, and really liked seeing their faces light up at magnesium burning or the revelation that sodium chloride is table salt. They were both very cute and rather clever. Even Mrs Colvin thought so, and she's never been known for how much she likes kids. While they were doing the flame tests, I noticed the green copper flame burning white in the middle, and absently wondered why that was so. Apparently it's to do with the element's emission spectra exhibiting in the flame. The electrons changing levels cause the distinct signature. I was sort of pleased; she certainly didn't have to teach me that, and it was in a sense all coming round again, as I'd been teaching all afternoon and was now getting a bit of free education for myself.
We were all sorry to see the kids go, but managed to clean the benches in five minutes flat, and I went off home feeling rather pleased with the world. I had to tutor this evening as well - Tara this time - and that was strangely satisfying too. Tara, as I may have said, is much harder to teach. Her doing maths reminds me of myself attempting to dance - she forgets things, does them in the wrong order, and stumbles. As I said later, it's pure bad luck that the fact I can't dance doesn't matter, and the fact she finds maths difficult does. In any case, I managed to teach her enlargement with a negative scale factor and began on quadratics again.
A good day, overall.
