Bragging Rights

Lately I have been feeling impressed to give a change of pace to the standard cynical nature of my posts...or at least those that deal with my world inside this gated community or prison if you will. You see a couple weeks ago I took a big step in my teaching career, a turning point, a brink decision...I lead a field trip...it was MY field trip, I was not just tagging along, it was my idea, I filled out the transportation request, I found another chaperon...I was the leader. The morning of the field trip I was a wreck, I was nervous wreck and I was LATE...but fear not so was our bus driver. It was me and another teacher and my 16 AP Biology students. We were headed to Purdue University for a "Genetic Update Conference."

Upon boarding the bus I began with my explicit instructions..."This is to be an EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE! The format will be that of a college classroom setting. You may be thinking this is a 'free day' or a 'play day' away from school...planning to have fun...more than planning to learn new things about biology and genetics. CLEAR EVERYONE OF THOSE THOUGHTS FROM YOU MINDS NOW!! We are NOT going to have FUN...we are going to LEARN... If for some unfortunate reason you decide to act like a FREAKSHOW i.e. talk, chew gum loudly, SLEEP...yes, gentlemen in the back who struggle with this daily...if I even catch one of your eyelids closed longer than an average blink I will relocate myself between the two of you and I will make absolutely sure that you will STAY AWAKE!!" Yeah I would call that "Putting the fear of God into them." I have to say...IT WORKED! Now, I wasn't really expecting them to act poorly but I was not expecting the other schools to act so horrifically!!! The presenter had to stop twice to specifically point out students who were not giving him undivided attention...and I am telling you those students will never forget those moments in their lives...he humiliated them in front ALL of us...it was intense...I was scared!! But, my little angels, it just warms my heart to think about it all over again, they were fantastic!! We were the only school to answer questions, however, they were meant to be rhetorical, but what can I say, I have cultivated eager little geniuses. Even the fellow teacher that I brought with was proud to be associated with them. There were however, a couple of incidences when I had to correct some behavioral issues. You see there were some other students from other schools that kept asking ridiculous questions, and I had a couple of students who kept shaking their heads in shame when they would hear such a question! I guess have drilled home a little too hard the idea that "there IS a such thing as a stupid question!"

Anyway, we had a BLAST and we learned some AWESOME new genetic/medical advances that have occurred over this past year. My students have been talking about it ever since. I even had a student call her dad at work, before we even got home, to start telling him some of the stuff we learned. It was well worth the fear of spending the entire day with the same 16 high school students!!