I.T. to Teacher

I went to a one day Pre AP conference thing for science teachers. I came away with a big notebook full of stuff that should be useful, and a couple of eyes opened after interacting with public school teachers. Keep in mind that my only experience with public school teachers so far has been my freshman year in high school. Not much to go on.

My "lab partner" for this was a middle school Integrated Physics and Chemistry teacher. I emphasize Chemistry. One of our labs had us measuring the volume of water in a graduated cylinder. Not hard, right? This IPC teacher poured the water in until the line where the water touched the side of the cylinder was at 100. What's wrong with this picture? If you answered, "Aren't you supposed to measure liquid volumes from the apex of the meniscus" you'd be right. Many of you probably remember this from high school, even if you haven't used it since then. I commented to my partner that she needed to add a little more water because we needed to measure from the bottom of the meniscus. She didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. She added a couple of drops (clearly not enough, if she understood) and asked, "How's that?" Ugh, I ended up adding the water myself.

All throughout this class I was seated in the front of the room. I'm normally a mid-back of the room kind of guy, but I figured that teachers are always harping on "sit closer; fill it the empty chairs" so I shouldn't jump to the back. Well, that wasn't the only thing I thought teachers did.

The teachers who were seated in the back of the room spent a lot of the time talking. Sometimes to the point that I was having trouble hearing the instructor. Whatever happened to teachers telling kids to stop talking? Is this a case of "while the kids are away the teachers will play?"

One lab we were supposed to do silently. This was because we had to figure something out without talking about it. How hard is it to get a classroom full of teachers to shut up for a couple of minutes? Apparently, very.

When we came back from a break one of the teachers was talking on his cell phone. This would have been fine if he had stopped talking once the class started, but he didn't. He talked on the phone for several minutes after the instructor started talking again. Eventually, he ended the call with "I have to go now," in a loud whisper. Again, don't teachers keep students from talking on phones during class?

Based on this experience and your comments to an earlier post of mine I'm expecting many surprises once I start working.

Edit: Talk about bad. Who measures water in a graduated calendar.