Greek in the Delta

Having gone to a college with a strong focus on the Greek language, I am often inclined to tear apart words and look for their root meanings. This inclination has proven to be a good one for teaching. My students are interested for various reasons: they love recognizing Greek letters that have to do with their favorite fraternities and sororities (I try to discourage this association, though). Some of them also find that remembering the root is easier than remembering the English derivative and this can help on tests and quizzes. One of my favorite new websites for implementing the language connection is http://www.etymonline.com. This site is easy to navigate and so great for finding the origin and root meaning of most key vocabulary terms in my classroom. I teach both math and science, and have used this site for tons of different lessons in each class. My most successful lessons with it have been those involving polygons, measurement (centimeter, millimeter, etc.), biotic and abiotic factors, homeostasis, ecosystem, and others. It has gotten to the point in my seventh grade science class that I can put up a word on the board, and my students will begin to shout out their ideas of how the word might be broken up into roots. A similar scenario happened the other day in class: we already learned that the word homeostasis can be split into two roots: Homeo – meaning "the same", and stasis – meaning "to stand still." When I asked them to find other words which include either of these roots, one student suggested Homosexual, meaning the same sexual preference. I was so psyched at my students' ability to recognize words and meanings, and they brought up homosexuality in a mature context (of course, not all of my students responded in a mature manner). When it came time to take our unit test on homeostasis and I asked for an appropriate definition of the term, over half my class referred to the "ancient Greek roots" that we had learned. AWESOME! On a smaller, but perhaps more entertaining note, I have a story to share: One day I asked my students to try and recognize the root word that was shared in the following common terms: Biology, Biography, Bio-sphere, and Biotic. Most of them picked out the B-I-O immediately. I then proceeded to explain to them the Greek origin of the word (life), and the proper pronunciation (Bee-ose). After I had them try saying it a couple of times, I began laughing. I explained to my class that the reason I thought the word was so funny was because of how familiar it sounded to bi-atch. They roared with laughter, and for the rest of the week I could hear people running down the hallway yelling ancient Greek as slander. Although some may disagree, I consider it a great success if I can get my students to stop calling each other ignorant and profanities, and start using ancient Greek as an outlet for teasing and humor. I’m looking forward to what words we’ll be dissecting next week.

SLIME

I am a math teacher who teaches science. I was a bit shocked when my school told me three weeks into the school year that I was going to be teaching a seventh grade science class. Science?! What do I know about science? When I was little I liked to set my trolls on fire… chemistry? Well, seventh grade science is not a state tested subject, and I happen to have a roommate who teaches science, so… ok… I decided to teach science. It started out very ambitious: visions of experiments, nature walks, discussions, and lab reports danced in my head. Sadly, the experience has not quite lived up to what I had hoped. My school has no lab equipment, no nature, discussions can begin but have trouble being sustained, and the few small experiments I’ve brought in were more to dazzle and keep the students’ interest than to teach them. However, there have been some good days, and some GREAT days.

During an Oxford meeting last semester, the methods class for the science teachers made slime. I am in the math methods class, but – if you will remember – my roommate teaches science, so I was able to go home and play with the new toy, as well as have simple directions to make the gooey stuff (if anyone is interested, you can find pretty good directions if you go to http://bizarrelabs.com/slime.htm or just search “making slime”). I waited until the Monday before Christmas Break to surprise them with this activity. Luckily, my science class is the last period of the day, and my planning period is right before this, which allows me time to transition from math to science, and manipulate my classroom and materials in any way I need to. Unfortunately, though, my students use a computer course (I Can Learn Math Lab) during their math class, and my classroom is a type of computer lab, making slime very unwelcome. To avoid slime, water, and glue ending up all over the place, I had a lot of prep to do, and a lot of ground rules to lay out. For prep, I took the time to measure out most of the ingredients for them, in order to avoid spillage everywhere. I also labeled everyone’s equipment, from glue bottles, to Dixie cups, and down to the stir sticks – I was hoping to avoid any arguments in my class about who had what. When my students came in, I made it my mission – for the sake of time and the sake of my classroom – to be the biggest hard-ass EVER! I never cracked a smile until the very end; my words were loud and clear; if anyone was goofing around I walked over to their desk, slammed my hand down as hard as I could on the wood, and gave them a warning or sent them outside. I felt like a drill sergeant giving commands, no emotion, and punishing those who did not obey. It is certainly not a way that I would want to run classes normally, but it got the job done. By the end of class my kids all had a bag full of slime to take home, and my classroom was spick-and-span – minus the few odd sprinkles of borax on the floor.

The next day my students were begging me to do the project again, and I had other students walking in to my class all day long asking me to make slime with them. It was frustrating to ward off the stray students, but I was pleased knowing the reason that they were interrupting my class.

I spoke to my roommate about this project and we have discussed the logistics of doing this project all day with six different periods – LOCO! She and I agreed that iit would be an activity that a teacher could use as a classroom reward, giving it only to one class after they earn a certain amount of points or reach a set goal of some kind. As soon as you mention SLIME, most students will be hooked.