43 Days

Sly & The Family Stone - THANK YOU FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN 

Sometimes, on days like today, I feel like I am a bad teacher with horrible classroom management who is trying to impart a sense of wonder in students who have so much stacked against them it is hard to say how they would even cultivate that sense of wonder, anyway.

Despite this, many of them told me that they went home last night and found the Big Dipper and the North Star and Venus. So, all is not lost.

After seven years of teaching, I feel like I should be doing better, but I am not. I know that I have not taught these students as much as they should have learned. I feel like I have let them down: somehow I have not shown them what I should. Somehow, I have failed them. Somehow, no matter what I have done, it has not been good enough.

Next week, we will learn more about planets and stars and the origins of the Universe. As I told them today, the whole purpose of learning astronomy, besides the nuts and bolts, is to inspire a sense of wonder and to realize how small we are in a sea of everything that is so large.

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

1. Fridays

2. Labs that teach students that the solar system is larger than they could possibly imagine

3. Looking forward to sunbathing in Fairmount Park this weekend

4. Students playing a song by Jay-Z because "we love you"

5. Teaching astronomy and realizing that, no matter what, kids are kids and they all love to learn about space.