High School Lessons (#2)

If any other high school science teachers out there stumble upon this blog, this post is for you.

(You can thank me later ...)

Lesson #2: Tenth graders LOVE Bill Nye the Science Guy

Being that today is Friday, and we were basically wrapping up our latest chapter in preparation for a test next week anyway, I found a Bill Nye video at the library and decided to use it in class today. Not only would it take up 26 minutes out of my 50 minute period, it would change things up a bit ... My students have been doing a lot of "independent study" lately, which is basically just them reading at their seats and filling in answers on a worksheet.

I have only used a Bill Nye video once at my previous school and, for some unfathomable reason, the age group it targeted (middle school kids) seemed to think it was "dumb" and "stupid." Let's just say that is most definitely not the case with high-schoolers ...

From the second I announced that we'd be watching a video, I was bombarded with: "Is it Bill Nye the Science Guy?!"

This surprised me a little bit (I know that I've always liked Bill Nye but I had no idea he had a teen aged following), but the response to my answer of "yes" was even more unexpected. The cheer that erupted from the room was so loud, you would have thought that I had just given the entire class the next week off! And then, when the video started, all was quiet ... That is, until the theme song started up. There was bopping in the seats, shouts of "Bill! Bill!" in time with the music, and genuine giddiness and laughter as the video progressed. It's almost hard to imagine a student in this age group laughing at something that isn't filled with sexual innuendo, but they were.

They were loving it.

The act of watching this particular video sort of stripped away some of their "I'm-too-cool-for-everything" layers and they began acting like the kids they truly are underneath all those walls and reputations ... It was nice to look around the room and see them entranced by the video, heads propped up on elbows, eyes focused on the TV. It was nice to see kids filling my classroom, not mini-adults as they often pretend to be.

But, ultimately, it was nice to have a little reminder (after a long week) as to why I really do like working with this often volatile, always unpredictable age group.