Captain's Log: Lotta Fun with Lava Lamps!

I ended my classes this week with a successful bang!

First off, I can see why television shows are so freaking helpful to handle kids. When it was roundup time, when the kids left their classrooms to gather into their enrichment classes, I put my homemade lava lamp on display on the sheet with the class's name. I put in the alka-seltzer tablet, but a flashlight on the bottle, and just told the kids that were there to "watch this!"

It was like putting on a tv show for them. They were mesmerized. More kids gathered to watch. It felt like I could step back for a few minutes and just breathe. It was wow. Just wow.

Similar enough to an ad or trailer for the class that I think I'll be doing it again in the future, giving the kids a preview into what they're going to be doing in class that day.

For the older kids, and the slightly-older kids, I brought more tarps. This was a very good thing, because somehow with a bottle of oil those older kids got one tarp really messy.

I say somehow, but I saw how it happened. I put the materials on the table, and the kids grabbed them like a pack of hyenas, fighting over the bottle of oil, the flashlights, and the bottles as if there wasn't enough for all of them. Feral critters, they were. I thought kids had learned to share by then.

Then again, all the older kids were boys. Something about maturity, yada yada, should have expected it.

I got to give the lecture to the younger ones, but it wasn't easy because the older kids got loud. They got loud, and tried to figure out the recipe while I was talking to the younger ones, demonstrating that same recipe and explaining why it worked. It really is a miracle when the kids pay attention.

I had a box of 72 alka-seltzers courtesy of a Safeway near my house, and I had more than enough left from the first class to give these kids three opportunities to make their lava lamps fizz up. To be honest, counting those tablets out, realizing and announcing this news to the class felt really fun. The kids cheered and jumped around with excitement, and I was glad that despite all my worries they were having fun.

But I had to know they learned something. I forgot to give them the experiment logs and I knew they weren't going to put anything in them now, as well as just thinking about the time. So, upon the third round of alka-seltzer tablets, I told them three things they need to get it: a "please", an answer to a quiz question, and a "thank you".

I gotta give the credit where credit's due: For the moments of please and thanks, the kids turned into little angels.

I quizzed them on the science - what was making the bubbles, what the bubbles were made of, where to find these ingredients - and then sent them off with a tablet in hand.

I should also mention that one of the kids found a pointer stick. Let me tell you, in my hands, that stick felt like a powerful scepter. I was no longer a teacher. I was The Teacher. The power was fun.

Alas, I could try to bring my own scepter to class. But I think a wand, or a dragon wand, would have an opposite effect to a simple blue stick with a pointed finger attached. So, hopefully I find that scepter when I walk into that classroom next time.

I realized during all the commotion of getting the kids to make the lamps, making things orderly, and trying to shut down the troubles that the older kids were giving, that there were times where it felt like my autism was showing.

And not in the stimming way or anything like that, but when there was so much sensory information that I had to take a moment to collect deep breaths and center myself. The little kids were asking me questions, the older kids were messing around with each other, and I was still just trying to pour vegetable oil in another kid's lava lamp. I was hearing everything, and feeling panicked, stuck in a whirlwind.

I think at these times it's good to have a teacher's assistant, someone to take the reigns for just a minute and allow me to catch my breath. I, however, did not have an assistant.

What could I do next time? Ask one of the kids - someone who is responsible and listens to me - and have them take over the primary duty of pouring the oil, just for a few moments. That would have been nice.

But, as it usually is, hindsight is twenty-twenty and the smart choices are only visible after the event is over.

In the end, the kids had fun, proved to me they learned something, and walked out of the classroom happy. Those who wanted to keep their lava lamps got to bring them home, and those who already had a lava lamp in their house dumped theirs into the sink - not what I would have wished, but at least they had fun.

The mess left afterwards wasn't even hard to clean, because of the tarps. I handled it by myself afterwards, not even irritated, because, again, of the tarps. All hail the tarps!

Overall, for the first time ever I felt like things had gone right with both of my wacky science classes. Are there things I need to improve on? Most definitely, always, and forever. I need to choose a kid to be a teacher's assistant, and I need to find ways to quiz the kids without holding up on the fun. I will be trying to get them to do the experiment logs, but maybe I can at least get them to say the words aloud. It was a good idea to make a smaller kit for the older kids, and I'll be doing that next time. It might also be good to assign a team leader for the older kids as well, just to try to make things less chaotic there. And knowing the science of these things helped a lot.

I directed the making of the lamps, explained the science appropriately, and

To give a mini-log of the young sharks class - because it went well too! - I taught them about financial literacy. It was a pretty serious matter, and I felt like I conveyed the seriousness of the topic well, in addition to giving them examples of how they'd need to consider cost and earnings into their business. At one point, they asked if they needed to bring in a prototype or a model of their product, claiming the actual one would take months to make.

I thought on my feet, but I actually already had a good answer to give them. I didn't need a big model. I needed blueprints, a plan, something physical and visible. One girl asked why she couldn't give it verbally, and I said it was because a physical thing meant that they had to think about it and write it down, and by writing it down they made the idea more concrete and more promise than concept. By making blueprints they made more of an investment towards themselves.

Like I said, it wasn't exactly out of nowhere that I pulled this information out. I told them how in order to get my master's degree from Johns Hopkins, one of the big assignments was to write up a year-long plan of my future, going from daily tasks to weekly and then to monthly, all to attain a yearly goal. How doing this, making it physical, was to make a promise to yourself.

I told them my goal of being a science communicator, and how to invest in myself and my future I bought and designed a blog, domain name, and website. That this stuff was on a monthly subscription basis, so every month I was paying to keep this stuff up was a month where I was investing in my future. Before typing it all down and submitting it to class, this had just been an idea. A concept. A 'I-don't-want-to-think-about-this-right-now-I'm-tired' assignment that after reading some inspiration I took very seriously (I also took it seriously because it was going to be graded. I'm an A-student after all).

So them doing that, thinking on it and writing it all down, was to make an investment with themselves. I think I conveyed it quite well.

Overall, they learned, asked questions, and I got through all the class material I was supposed to get to. In the end, to gain more understanding of financial literacy, I assigned both them and their parents homework: to watch Shark Tank.

I actually used my authoritative, parental mom voice on the parents. I told them they have homework, and to watch Shark Tank with the kids. My mom voice, my mom eyes, with the no-nonsense attitude. And those parents nodded.

Like wow! I felt tall.

I'll be asking the kids next time in class if they did watch the show, either from youtube, Amazon, or Netflix. Maybe I'll have a sheet of gold stars for the parents when they come to pick up their kids afterwards, giving a sticker to those who did well. It might seem funny, or a little childish.

But hey, who doesn't like a "good job!" sticker?