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, reflect, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School, as expressed 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'll soak this one in.
My practice the last few years has been collaborations with classrooms outside of my building. It's something that I always looked forward to. You can read about some of these amazing collaborations between high school and elementary school kids in these older posts: Fury Road Harmonious Instruction Last week, I was invited to be part of one of our elementary school's high interest day in which students are able to attend a wide variety of sessions that allow them to explore a range of topics. I decided to see if any of my high school students wanted to be a part of sharing the physics of sound and electricity with the elementary students. I was lucky enough to have 5 amazing students answer the call! I won't go into too much depth about what we did. But we designed two different activities to engage in. The first was using Makey Makey Kits to use as music inputs and video game controllers. The second was using LittleBits Synth Kits to allow students to expl...