It has been six weeks since I posted a blog.

I wish I could say I was off on a safari with no internet access, but I was right here the whole time trying to survive the 2nd quarter of the school year.

Christmas break has finally arrived; I almost blew my monitor off the desk just now from the sheer power of my sigh of relief!

This school quarter was a jam-packed one. We had not only research papers for language arts but also the dreaded science fair! As a special education teacher, I support students who not only have learning problems but often motivational problems.

Since they’ve experienced so much failure in school, they are often in defense-mode by the time they get to junior high and they’d rather come across as lazy and nonchalant than incapable.

Long-term projects can be quite a challenge for a kid who flat-out doesn’t want to do it.

That’s where I come in. I get to play the part of cheerleader, drill sergeant, tutor, naggy mother, and editor.

Research papers came first. Students were allowed to choose a famous person of historical significance and had to write a five paragraph biography about their choice.

I co-teach with two language arts teachers: Tracy and Kathleen. Tracy insisted that the person students chose must have been dead for at least 10 years and couldn’t be a sports figure (or Hitler). Kathleen just said the person had to be in an encyclopedia and must be approved by her.

So…I got to learn about all kinds of people: Martin Luther King, Jr., Stonewall Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Emmitt Smith, Denzel Washington, and Shel Silverstein, just to name a few.

Did you know that Shel Silverstein, the beloved author of The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends was a cartoonist for Playboy and wrote the Johnny Cash song, A Boy Named Sue?

Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth name was actually Michael?

Ah, the benefits of helping 20-plus kids write research papers.

Then came science fair. No offense to any of you scientific sorts out there, but I really, really, really hate science fair!

This year, the science teachers decided it would be ok for the strategies teachers to do group projects with their special education students to make things a little easier.

One day, in the teacher’s lounge, I gazed at my science teacher friend Kim with pleading eyes and said, “Kim, I beg you. Please come into my strategies class and do a project with my kids.”

The next day, Kim strode into my room and did all of the pre-experiment stuff for a crystal project. The kids hung on her every word, and I scribbled down notes like a mad woman.

She vowed to return another day to faciliate the experiment.

Well, she ended up being out sick that day, so it was left to me. With a sense of dread, I zipped over to Super Target and got the needed supplies: salt, alum, borax, water, and containers for growing the crystals.

I went to the science closet and swiped beakers and hot plates.

When the kids walked into the room, I had everything but the lab coat and goggles. I was ready.

“Ok, guys, we will have to work together to make this happen. If you act like wild people, I will simply put this stuff away and you are on your own to do your science experiment at home.”

I received complete cooperation.

Together, we followed the procedure Kim laid out. All went fine except for the moment when I was pouring an alum/water solution into the crytal growing container and my student Jason said, “Mrs. Merrill, why are your hands shaking?”

Sigh.

By the time the bell rang, we had nine containers labeled and sitting in a safe spot so the water could evaporate over time: three alum solutions, three salt solutions, and three borax solutions.

As the students cleared out, it dawned on my how exhausted I was (and how pleased I was). I had stepped out of my comfort zone for the sake of my students and our efforts were fruitful.

I unplugged the hot plates and left the rest of the supplies where they stood to shoot off to an afternoon meeting.

The next morning, I came into clean up my mess and set up for my other strategies class and discovered an incredible sight; the bottom of the beaker with leftover alum solution was covered with beautiful hexagonal crystals!

I was beyond thrilled and proudly marched from science lab to science lab showing off my beautiful crystals! Boy, were those science teachers impressed!

I managed to replicate the experiment with my other strategies class, which is twice as ornery as the first one. Other than the addition of purple marker ink into the solutions so they could have colored crystals, things went off with only minor threats and one slight case of yelling on my part. My hands didn’t shake that time, or at least no one noticed.

After Thanksgiving break, we returned to discover all the water had evaporated out of the crystal growing containers. We were ready to collect our data…which required a triple balance scale. I almost threw the blasted thing out the window a few times, but we got our data.

After much cajoling, I do believe 99% of my strategies students turned in lab reports and got points in the grade book for science fair.

I gave myself an A++!

Oh, in case you were wondering, the salt solution had the heaviest crystals. Email me if you need the whole experiment to do last minute with your kids.

Back to blogging,