Is This How a Ping Pong Ball Feels?

Yoicks!  I've just returned from my middle school child's open house.  Ten minutes in each of nine classes, with five minutes in between.  I don't know how these kids do it.  I guess they need this to stay in shape.  There are two buildings.  One has two floors and the other has three.  I had to go from the second floor of one building to the third floor of the other, and I could feel my heart pounding from taking all those stairs at a good clip.  Well, I finished the parental exercise.

What a pleasure to see the enthusiasm and excitement in the way the teachers spoke.  The math, social studies, English, and science teachers all said that they have a deep appreciation for the work ethic and commitment of the kids in the honors classes (OK so mama geek was an honors student too) and they said they were skipping a great deal of their usual spiel about turning in homework on time, studying for quizzes, and extra help.  It's also lovely to see that our tax dollars have paid for "smart boards" in most of the classrooms I visited tonight.  The art teacher explained that, with a touch of the screen, she can zoom out to the Internet and call up an image of a famous painting that comes up in class discussion (for instance, the students were incredulous when she mentioned that the Mona Lisa does not have eyebrows).

Ninth period (the last of the day) is Technology, what we in my day would have called Wood Shop.  The teacher seemed very nice, and very competent at what he does, but he spoke in an even monotone.  I could have kept time using my son's metronome that we bought for his clarinet lessons.  Not too loud, not too soft, but just flat.  The ends of the sentences didn't even drop off.  He just began a new sentence and we had to be paying attention to break his words into groups logically.  I amused myself by trying to imagine how these kids maintain focus; they're either falling asleep or they're dying to get outside at the end of their school day.  Hopefully they can concentrate on using the tools correctly.  They're going to make a gumball machine, a marble racetrack, and a paper towel holder.  Well, I guess we all endured this rite of passage.

I do feel a bit gypped that I didn't see the Home Care Skills teacher (that's an A day class).  For the over 40 crowd, that would be Home Economics.  :-)