After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content. The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them. I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
The morning of the third and final day of PBL 101, I was feeling kind of thought full. I think you may know what I mean. You have absorbed so much new knowledge that you don't have the ability to take on more before some time this reflect and break it down. For those of you who have had a health course, think about how your liver handles alcohol in the blood. The liver breaks down alcohol in the bloodstream. But sometimes the liver can't keep up with the concentration in our bloodstream and this leads to the intoxicating effects of alcohol. I say this to point out that I was feeling a little overwhelmed coming in to the last day I'd be attending PBL World. The feeling quickly changed from overwhelmed to extremely engaged when I discovered that Alfred Solis was giving the keynote. Ok, in all honesty it occurred when I learned exactly who Alfred Solis was. A couple of years ago when I first tried to learn about what PBL was and how it tied to physics, I ...