Only one week until the wedding! Which is why I’ve been slacking off on website updates… but better late than never, right?

About a month ago I participated in Chicago Public School’s Teacher For A Day program - and I’ve been meaning to write a short summary. I got to spend the day teaching an elementary school class - and as you can see in the pictures we had a lot of fun! The highlights of the day were taking apart a computer and talking about how it works, and our electricity science experiment. Erin helped me out a lot for the class since she teaches teachers at the Museum of Science and Industry and used to be in a classroom herself.

For the experiment, each student received a bag with all kinds of random objects. They also received a small battery and a christmas light. Their job was to put each item between the battery and the christmas light - and then write down which items made the light turn on and which didn’t. Later we talked about the scientific terms - conductors, insulators and circuits. They hadn’t learned about electricity yet in the class but the experiment was designed so that they didn’t really need prior knowledge - and it was a great introduction!! I absolutely had a ball with the students.

It was also a great opportunity to just get a little more exposed to the community and the schools in Chicago. I think that I personally learned more from the experience than any of the students in my class did. The teacher for my assigned classroom helped out a lot too - in fact she was incredible.

It’s a little humbling to step into their world. By some strange coincidence the teacher I worked with was the same age as me and had even gone to college with some of my high school friends. She was incredibly talented - in fact she spent her lunch period explaining to a few high-level CPS administrators a system she invented in her classroom to manage children at different reading and math levels. They were talking about ways to distribute her ideas throughout all of CPS. This girl is brilliant - with structure/planning/teaching and with managing people (both young and old). And she’s putting crazy hours into developing this classroom.

Another friend of mine was recently chatting with me about his salary. He’s just a few years out of college and is trying to figure out how much of a raise he should demand at work. He’s very smart - but I would say that the teacher I worked with was just as brilliant. And she’ll be lucky to make even a third of what he would like to get paid. What makes her teach? Such a stark contrast.

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