Science, I say

I have subbed lots of 7th grade science, so I am very comfortable dropping into that class. We have a website of available sub jobs and when I saw one for a 7th grade science teacher I have worked for before, I grabbed it. I was more than a bit surprised this morning to find out he switched to 6th grade this year. (Why? Who does that?)

Pandemic has not been kind to 6th graders. They had a lot of distance learning time before they had really fully learned how to be students. They don’t have much interest in anything that takes effort and are not very self-motivated. Of course, I generalize…but…well, often generalizations come from truth.

When I came into the room, I saw a bunch of paper statues in the back. Upon inspection, they were paper tracks for ping pong balls to run down. Cool. They were made out of scrap (or at least already-run-through-the-copier) paper, which made me happy. I like reusing a lot. I was really, really impressed. There were little tape or paper bumps, and fringe hanging down, and holes to see through tunnels – lots more than just tubes for the balls to run through. There were six completed tracks, plus two partials. I was puzzled. There are 5 classes, with 35 kids in each (except last hour – only 28 – it seemed tiny). One per class made no sense and didn’t add up. More than one per class didn’t add up either. I wondered if this science teacher had a club – with 8th graders maybe – who worked on this project.

I asked the first kids who came in what the story was. They said they made them – bravo 6th graders! I asked why there were only 6 (+2) and they said, “Because they were only due last week. Most people didn’t do anything in class and had to take them home to finish.”

Ah.

The tracks were still cool.