Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Sitting at School

This afternoon, I sat in the back of two different classrooms and watched the interplay of class and teacher -- part of the school's three-day program to involve parents. As things go, I suppose that three days out of an entire year isn't all that much. I enjoyed it, though.

A lot of the reason was that one of the two classes was science -- basic physics -- and unlike the first time I sat through this stuff, I knew the answers this time. Constant velocity! I wanted to call out, as he was looking for someont to explain what a graph with a flat line halfway up the Y axis was demonstrating. And when he asked what a graph of the speed of a pitched baseball would look like, I was delighted when, of the four kids going up to draw it on the board, only my daughter got it completely right (though he said that he would accept a graph showing the ball with a steady velocity immediately after being pitched, I knew that a purist would naysay it. Me, too, but in my case, it was just being picky). I took a moment at the end of class to tell one girl, who'd had her hand up most of the time, that I was impressed by how often she did that, and she lit right up. I like when I can do that.

The other class, unfortunately, wasn't a class- they were taking a test for the entire period, so I got to watch my daughter screwing up her face, trying to remember stuff that I know she studied, because, dammit, I was there helping. (As a result of which, I now know what the Interior Plains are, not that I've ever heard the phrase any where else. And Lake Effect, that staple of Buffalo weather reports.)

Don't know if I could do that job, but I admire the people who do.
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