Nitrogen is a Common Xave Element

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Let me be upfront. This post is about farting. (I'm not sure if farts actually contain nitrogen, but whatever.) Specifically, my farting habits. So if you don't want to hear about that, just close the tab now. (And if you don't use tabs, get off the internet, cause you internetsuck.)

Ha ha, I knew you wouldn't leave. Who doesn't want to hear about farts?

Anyway, I wasn't always a farter. Actually, that's not true: I've always engaged in my share of flatulation, but it (my flatulation) used to be mostly odorless. I don't know what changed, but in the last couple years, all my farts, without fail, smell awful.

I've noticed it particularly in school. It's a constant struggle to keep it in. It started last year when I did my two practica at Ottawa schools, and as far as I can remember I was 100% successful at holding it in, or at least confining it to my teacher area where it couldn't spread. But this year the teacher area is much less well-defined; just a small desk instead of a big lab bench. The lab bench, completely befitting of a physics classroom, was very effective at Fart Diffraction Prevention. Also, I have students coming up to me all the time, a big difference from last year when I would mostly visit them at their desk, when if there was an incident, I could pretend to be busy with something for a minute until the air cleared.

Consequently, my stifling success rate has dipped below 100%. There have been several times when I've dropped a serious bomb right in the student area, and in most cases they definitely knew where it came from. A couple were so bad they I totally cleared out the area, with the students dashing for cover on the other side of the classroom. Unfortunately, I didn't make any jokes about it the first couple times, and now I can't bring it up because it's awkward. But they definitely know me as the farter.

Fortunately, it's not quite as bad as it sounds. For one thing, as far as I can remember, all the really bad incidents luckily happened with the same class (I have 4 different classes). Secondly, my fart prevention has improved quite a bit. I can smell it coming a mile away now (not literally, thank god), giving me enough warning to prepare my butt muscles accordingly, and it hasn't happened for quite a while.

Hopefully my reputation as the farty teacher will start to diminish as the time since the last incident grows. But I must always be on the lookout, for a single infraction could ruin all my hard work, and I will once again be known as Dave Butt.

Joke's on Me

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Yesterday, I wrote about a colleague's newly-formed blog that I helped name. The name is kind of ridiculous, but she went with it anyway, so in yesterday's entry I wrote (only half-jokingly) "joke's on her".

Well, even though I was kidding (kind of), what went around came around, and I was the butt of not one but two running jokes yesterday, which I will now elaborate on.

After school yesterday, the regular crew of Friday soccer players, which includes a mix of teachers and maintenance workers, headed off to another school to play our first match against a different team. Upon arrival, I discovered that I didn't have my shorts. I could've sworn I had packed them in the morning, so I was somewhat baffled. Just when I was about to go ask a colleague if he had an extra pair, the affable (and non-English speaking) phys. ed teacher Jairo held up a pair of shorts that looked suspiciously like mine.

Before I go on, allow me to describe these shorts. I've had them for a very long time, more than 5 years for sure. They're just a regular pair of athletic shorts, and really the only ones I've had for, probably, the entire time I've had them. I've just never needed another pair, because they're good enough. A year or two ago, the drawstring broke, and now they look kind of ridiculous, because the waistband is kind of frayed upwards, but as long as I cover it with a shirt it's okay, and despite the lack of drawstring they still stay up.

That is, they did until yesterday. When Jairo found them, the lack of drawstring led him to believe they were the property of a very large person, and so he held them up and stretched them out for all to see, while joking that they must belong to Ivan, the large English teacher. Soon I recognized them as mine and was relieved that I wouldn't have to scrounge for an extra pair of shorts.

But when I got out on to the field to warm up, I realized that Jairo's stretching had made them a little too big, and I could only run for a few seconds before they started to fall down. By the time the game started, I hadn't yet devised a system for keeping them up, because I wasn't sure how big a deal it would be. But I quickly discovered it was, in fact, a big deal, when on my first ball possession I had to basically run while holding my shorts. Soon after I figured out that I could tuck my shorts into my boxers to hold them up, but not before my teammates had a good laugh.

The game was pretty good; the other team was better than us, but we kept it close, and trailed 3-1 at half-time. The second half was a more lackadaisical affair, especially on our part, since it was pretty hot (like usual) and we were playing on an actual-size soccer field, much bigger than what we're used to. Despite our lack of effort, though, we kept the score at 3-1 and it looked like it would stay there.

But then, somehow, we ended up on a 3 on 1 attack, with me being one of the three. Aldrin, one of the janitors, passed across to me, and I shot... right into the goalkeeper's stomach. But he couldn't hold on, the rebound came right back to me, and I tapped it into the open net.

This led to what could have been a great moment. Upon scoring a goal, a common celebration for soccer players is to take off their shirt and run around. It occurred to me that I could perform the same type of celebration, except instead of taking off my shirt I could pull my shorts down and run around with them around my ankles. It would have been hilarious. But I chickened out. Such a missed opportunity.

Anyway, the game ended 3-2, but we were all in good spirits afterward. The conversation inevitably turned to my shorts, and the joke became that I should be on the receiving end of the charity clothing drive that is currently happening at school for the holidays. Actually, that might be a good thing to do with my newly-gigantic shorts...

Linky Friday

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My Seattleite (is that the right word for someone from Seattle? I hope it is, because it's great, and if it is and I've heard it before I never realized it until now. It should be spelled Seatellite) colleague Karen blogged about a concert-show thing we went to. In the interest of efficiency, I won't be blogging about it, so just check hers out. Also, I already told you about our Thanksgiving dinner, but Karen's entry adds a couple of details and a couple more pictures.

Another colleague, Fathima the art teacher, started her own blog, and she's going to blog about art stuff she does in school, which sounds super-great! If that weren't incentive enough to check it out, I came up with the name for her blog, and even though she didn't get it at first (not being a native English speaker), and also even though it's ridiculous, she went with it! Joke's on her.

A few quick notes:

Last night I attended a choral competition that my co-worker Mario is participating in. It's a week-long contest - there was an opening show on Monday, I forget on Tuesday, then semi-finals on Wednesday and last night. There are 2 categories: little choir and big choir. Mario's group is in the little category, and it's a group of 8 guys who do all kinds of stuff - from baroque to barbershop. And they're really, really good. Like, this is purportedly a contest for best choir in Colombia, and I can believe it based on the level of the groups. Tonight is the final, which Mario's group is in, and I'll surely be in the audience.

Before that, though, there's a much-hyped soccer match between our school's staff and some sort of police school? Or... Police Academy? I'm not really sure. But hilarity could ensue. Also, apparently students are coming to watch it. I'm not sure how they found out about it, I thought it was just a low-key match between 2 schools. I better be on my A-game though.

Finally... I booked my Christmas ticket to Peru! I'll be there for 3 weeks, including a 5 day hike on the Inca Trail which ends in Macchu Pichu. Needless to say, There Will Be Blog.

Technology in the Classroom

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I have decided that there are 6 ascending levels of technology in the classroom. They go as follows:

1. Blackboard (if you can really call it technology)

2. Whiteboard (hm, guess boards are racist)

3. Overhead projector

4. Powerpoint projector

5. Smartboard (guess boards are intelligencist also)

6. Laptops

A blackboard is the most basic. I consider whiteboards an upgrade primarily because of the ability to write in different colours - even though I was never the type to take notes in multiple colours, in any level of my education, I've firmly adopted the practice as a teacher, and many students follow my lead (or already possessed that habit), making their notes that much more organized and insightful.

Overhead projectors are the next level, and in public education, is probably the level most schools are at, and are attempting to transition to level 4, Powerpoint projectors. By the way, when I talk about schools being "at" a certain level, that means the technology exists in every classroom. In most cases, technology is in either all or just a few classrooms. There are few schools that have, for example, Powerpoint projectors in half their classrooms. It's usually everywhere, or one for each department, for example.

Smart Boards are the new hot thing, and the 1:1 laptop program (where every student has a laptop) is clearly a step up from even that.

Okay, now a bit of context. Ontario public schools are generally at level 3, and almost all schools have bits of level 4, while many have a few level 5s and 6s (by "a few level 6s" I mean computers in the classroom - computer labs are not part of this discussion because they're not in the average classroom). International/private schools have a much broader range - my first practicum was at a fully level 6 school, while many others are 4 or 5, some with a partial 6.

And then there's the low end of the international school spectrum, which brings us to the impetus for today's post. My school is a level 2, with a very few 3s and 4s available for occasional use, and no 5s or 6s whatsoever (there is a computer lab, but it's almost always in use for computer class, and there are no computers in classrooms). I can honestly say that, less than a year ago, I never would have thought I'd be teaching in a classroom without at least an overhead projector.

You might be thinking my whining is a little extreme; of course there are thousands of classrooms far more ill-equipped than mine. But this is an international school, a school for the elite, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't at least be on par with the public school system in Canada. It can't be for lack of money, I don't think.

Look, technology is not a gimmick. It is a teaching tool, and if you ask me, an essential part of the classroom. Here's how technology would improve my classroom:

Level 3: I would be able to prepare all my lessons ahead of time, so that when the students enter, it's already sitting up there. This forces them to get to work immediately. I would also never have to turn my back on the students, which makes a big difference. They grab onto those moments and it's difficult to wrest the class back.

Level 4: It's cleaner and nicer-looking than overheads, and has many more capabilities. Specifically, it's great to be able to create shapes and insert them into the class slides - which is certainly possible on overheads - but the big difference is, you can animate the shapes with PowerPoint. This is incredibly powerful in math, as you can show shapes changing size, rotating, flipping, etc. Another advantage of PowerPoint is being able to e-mail the notes to the class at the click of a button.

Level 5: SmartBoards may seem like a small step up from PowerPoint, and in many ways they are - many of the main advantages are extensions of PowerPoint capabilities, such as the ability to manipulate shapes and other stuff. I will readily admit I'm no SmartBoard expert, but I've seen some amazing stuff they can do, and I hope to soon be in a classroom with one so I can learn a thing or 2. But I think in 10 years or so SmartBoards could really start to explode - computers are moving towards touch screens, and as more and more people start to use things like iPhones and touchscreen computers, the population will get much more comfortable with this type of interaction, making the SmartBoard a more intuitive and useful tool.

Level 6: I'm sure many teachers would dread 1:1 laptop programs, since they'd assume the students would just be on Facebook the whole time. It's a legitimate concern, and I'm not sure it would be a great idea at my school, but in my first practicum last year, it was amazing. There are huge advantages when this type of program works: the teacher e-mails out the notes ahead of time, so students never have to spend any time writing notes down, and the entire lesson can be spent actively learning.

These aren't just minimal improvements. Each level of technology is a major step up that adds quite a bit of value from an educational standpoint. Except for maybe the jump between level 1 and 2, for which the main advantage is the ability to use colours. Not really that big a deal. And yet it's the only leap my school has taken.

My First American Thanksgiving

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My first American Thanksgiving also happened to be my first Colombian Thanksgiving. Now, Colombians don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving, but because my school is kind of American, we got the day off. Only they don't really "get" Thanksgiving, so we got Friday off instead of Thursday.

Anyway, my colleague Karen had previously made noise about trying to make some pumpkin pie when Thanksgiving rolled around, so about a week ago I reminded her of this promise, since I love pumpkin pie. Well, we eventually decided to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner, so on Thursday we headed to the local supermarket for supplies.

The biggest question was what we would use for pumpkin, since there are no pumpkins here, and there certainly isn't canned pumpkin. In fact, I haven't seen any pies here (that's sort of a lie, I think there are frozen Sara Lee or whatever ones, but I haven't seen any at bakeries), and after asking a couple of Colombians, we discovered they don't even have a word for pie.

Anyway, we found what we decided was the closest thing to pumpkin, which became known as "The Thing", because we forgot its name. Here's what it looked like:

Yeah, I dunno, some kind of hybrid squash/pumpkin/green thing. It actually smelled/tasted more like pumpkin than anything else. Upon the recommendation of Karen's relatives, we baked The Thing for a few hours to soften it up for the pie. When we took it out of the oven, we really had no idea if it was good to go, but Karen decided to live by the tenet "as long as you can stick a fork in it". I decided this was a lesson that should be applied to many facets of life.

The other challenge with the pie was that we didn't have a pie pan, so we ended up making something more like pumpkin pie squares, but in the end it turned out pretty well.

The rest of dinner consisted of a chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato carrot purée, a Rooke/Rutt family tradition (with The Thing substituting for sweet potatoes), and a salad (Karen took pictures, if and when she puts them up I'll let you know). Pretty traditional Thanksgiving stuff. We had briefly considered the fact that, since Colombians don't celebrate Thanksgiving and don't have any expectations, we could really make anything we wanted and claim its place in the Thanksgiving canon, thus enabling us to include dishes such as nachos or pizza or whatever. In the end, though, we went traditional for our own sake, even if we were celebrating on the wrong day (and in the wrong month).

While dinner was distinctly North American, the guest list was distinctly South American: by which I mean, highly subject to change. When my mom asked how many people were coming I said "somewhere between 5 and 12". When the designated time rolled around, it looked like we weren't even going to fit into that overly broad range; there were only 3 people, Karen and I and one guest, our co-worker Cecilia. Fortunately, Elizabeth, who had been feeling very sick, mustered enough energy to join us, and brought her boyfriend Yoyi. And continuing in the Colombian tradition, 2 more guests wandered in at various points. Though this meant they got cold food, it also facilitated another Thanksgiving tradition: seconds (and beyond). Each time a new guest arrived, everyone (or, at least, I) went for a new round of food, partly to keep the new arrival eating-company, and partly (okay, fully) because Thanksgiving dinner is great.

After dinner, the traditions continued with the traditional loosening of the belts and the traditional almost falling asleep on the couch (despite the lack of triptyphan (I'm sure I'm engaging in yet another Thanksgiving tradition of misspelling that word)). We finished off the wine Cecilia had brought, and soon we were all snugly in bed, full and happy. A very successful Thanksgiving.

The Science Fair

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So, I bet you're wondering what that picture is all about.

Well, it came about as a result of the science fair my school had yesterday. Let me tell you about said science fair.

But first, I should say that as far as I can remember, I've never been to a science fair. I vaguely remember doing a science fair project in grade 7 or 8, and my topic was optical illusions; you know, the old/young lady, vase/face, straight/diagonal lines, etc. But I barely remember how all these projects were displayed; it might have just been a little in-class fair. And that was the only event I remember attending even coming close to a science fair. In high school, science fairs were an extra-curricular activity that only a few people partook in, and I didn't come across any during teachers college last year.

HAVING SAID THAT, I knew what to expect, since the science fair is a pretty well-known phenomenon. I had even crossed 1 or 2 projects in their preliminary stages, so I was ready.

I arrived at Combarranquilla, the location of the science fair, which is also some sort of cross between a country club and a rec center? That I got a membership to as part of my contract but I don't actually know what the membership does since apparently I still have to pay to go there? Anyway, there were 2 big rooms: one for grade 2-6, the other for grade 7-12. Shortly I was tracked down by Gilberto, the chemistry teacher, who thrust 3 projects into my arms to evaluate, because another teacher had called in sick. This suited me fine, because it would be more interesting than the alternative, being on duty, and would also be considerably less work, since 3 projects really isn't very many. Others were evaluating up to 10 and were busy all day. Oh, and when I went to evaluate the third, for some reason it had already been judged by the specified number of 2 adjudicators, so I really only had to grade 2. On top of that, the remaining 2 were almost the exact same project. And they were about music. I think it's safe to say I got off easy.

So, I totally just used that crazy picture to draw you in so you'd have to read my boring stories. Suckers!

Just kidding, the explanation is coming. Hold on to your horses.

So, naturally, I took advantage of all that free time in a couple of ways. First, a co-worker and I took a leisurely 1.5 hour lunch (who am I, an investment banker?) and walked around the club, checking out their facilities, which included 2 cafés of different fancinesses, a bar, a restaurant, a gym, a pool, a couple of party rooms, and a small cinema, which is currently playing Gone With the Wind, and which I tried to find a schedule for, only to discover the theater opened literally a week ago and they haven't figured out any sort of schedule system yet. (The whole place was only 4 months old, someone told me.)

The other thing I did with all my free time was check out most of my kids' projects. Here are some anecdotes:

• one group of grade 7 boys studied the effect of cell phones on muscles. In order to do this, they had me hold out my arm without my cell phone in it, and then pushed down on it, instructing me to resist. Then they repeated this trial while I was holding my cell phone, attempting to prove that I was weaker while holding my phone, because of the electromagnetism or whatever. Except that they pushed down WAY harder when I was holding my phone. Haha. I don't know if this was their methodology for the whole project, but, um, guys?
• another group of grade 7 boys made things out of banana peels for their project. It was pretty sweet, actually - they made soap, air freshener, and one other thing that I can't remember.

So what about that picture?!?!?!?!!? RELAX YOU WILL FIND OUT SOON.

• A group of grade 8 girls studied contraceptives, asking whether we should use them or not. Their conclusion was that we shouldn't, instead we should use abstinence. Sounds like a sex ed. video. I really have no idea what their methodology was to get to this conclusion, but that's not what I wanted to mention. On their poster, they had a series of 6 pictures of the effects of STDs. While examining the poster, one of them (the girls, not the pictures) asked me if I knew what the second picture was. It was a guy with some sort of rash on his face. I was like "um, I dunno", to which she replied "c'mon Mr., you know what it is." and I was like "um, some kind of rash?" Her response: "No Mr., it's a penis!" to myself: "okay, that is clearly a man's face, not a penis. What?" Then she pointed to the picture, which was a different one from the one I was looking at. It was the 2nd picture in the bottom row (2 rows of 3), so it really could only have been referred to as the 4th or 5th, depending on the order in which you count. I dunno where she got 2nd from. Anyway, regardless of the fact that it was her fault I was looking at the wrong picture, it's definitely embarrassing.
• Speaking of embarrassing situations, I was checking out the project of 2 grade 8s, a boy and a girl. The girl was really enthusiastic to show me the project, and at the end gave the boy a big hug and said something like "I love (name), we're such a good team!" to which I replied "Great! Good luck!" She misinterpreted this strictly science fair-related sentiment and quickly clarified "oh no Mr., we're not dating!" I told her I was talking about the science fair, which in retrospect was a mistake, because she was embarrassed and probably wouldn't have been if I had just been like "oh, okay."

The day wrapped up around 2:30, and I was hanging out in the judges room waiting for some peeps to be ready to go. It was at this point that someone brought in a cage of 4 hamsters, and announced that the kid who had acquired them for their project had decided at the last minute not to use them, and was going to just throw them away! So the grade 9-10 biology teacher humanitarianly decided to adopt them. Naturally, she was showered with compliments about her generosity, and also one warning from the grade 7/8 English teacher: "be careful, you might get rabbis!"

(Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 5

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Before you read this, check out (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4!

Unlike the other entries in this series, this isn't a collection of little darndest things; it's one big, amazing darndest thing.

The set-up: my grade 8s did a project on probability. The first part was some pretty plain mathy stuff, but part 2 involved researching something in real-life in which probability is useful. This actually wasn't very well done, including the one I'm going to relate to you; most kids just made something up that is completely unrealistic. It was mostly my fault for not giving detailed examples of what I was looking for, though.

Anyway, here is one full response:

Keith is totally in love with Annie Jane, and they have been dating since they met four years ago. They both think they make a great couple, but Julien, Keiths best friends thinks they are not meant for each other. So Keith is gonna have two blind dates to see wether he stays with Annie Jane or with one of the new girls Julien have selected for him.

If Keith feels bad, imagine how Annie Jane is gonna feel while she stays at home waiting for Keith to come back from his blind dates.

At the end, he needs to choose who he wants to keep seing his girlfriend of four years or the new girl, Julien have selected for him.

The probability that Keith selects or chooses Annie Jane is

97/100

and that he selects one of the others is

1/100 1/100

and that he stays alone is

1/100

because he is totally in love with Annie Jane and he doesn't even know the other girls.

Brilliant.