Science Teacher Part Time 50: Fill & Download for Free

Yes a couple of them have left me speechless. The one that comes to mind was my high school senior year science teacher. I was failing his class with something like a 50 test average or maybe less. I didn’t pay attention in his class, and he did not like me. I found him to be a sarcastic jerk but I wasn’t disrespectful or impolite to him. I sat in the middle of the classroom and tuned him out except when he would use me as the butt of joke or direct some sort of comment toward me.Around 10 days before the end of the course, it turned out that I did not have enough credit to graduate.The guidance counselor who was a real no nonsense tough old woman told me I had to pass the science course or else I would not graduate.At that time certain courses required state wide Regents Exams and the practice was that if you passed the test with 75% or better the teacher had to pass you. That appeared to be impossible in this case because I was so far behind.She ordered me to go speak to the teacher and ask him to pass me in order to graduate, which was a common practice at that time with students who needed to pass one or two courses to graduate High School. The teacher laughed in my face and told me that he would not change my grade under any circumstances at all and I was going to fail his course no matter what.I went back and told the guidance counselor who said that if I could pass the Regent Exam with 65 she would force him to pass me. That seemed impossible but I spent the remaining 9 days learning the entire science course from beginning to end and found that once I sat down and actually went over it page by page and topic by topic, it wasn’t inexplicable and I could even complete the few formulas and equations that were part of the course.I felt pretty good after the exam and thought there were only about 2 questions I absolutely did not know the answer to and a few others I wasn’t sure about. About a week later the exam results were posted on the board. There were a lot of failures, most of the grades were barely passing. There was no grade next to my name or my name was missing (I can’t recall). The science office was closed and I couldn’t reach the science teacher to find out why my grade wasn’t posted for about 4 days.Finally I found the science teacher in his office on Friday. I informed him that there had been a mistake and my science grade hadn’t been posted on the board. He told me there was no mistake. I had cheated and he pulled my grade intentionally. I was stunned but I managed to ask him why did he think I cheated?He told me that I scored the second highest mark in the class on the Exam, 87 or 92 on the Exam (I can’t remember which) and it was the second highest mark in the class. Actually it was the 3rd because another student scored a half point higher than I did. Therefore it was obvious that I cheated. I was dumbfounded. He said that he was in the middle of comparing my exam to the exams of the students who had sat around me. When he was finished determining who I cheated off, he would post my grade, which would be a general F.I was speechless which is something that I’ve always kicked myself for. I wanted to really tell him off but I wasn’t able to. After a few seconds, maybe more, I managed to say I didn’t cheat and he could do whatever he wanted with the exam and I walked out and slammed the door. I was so angry that I walked out the school. Later that afternoon or that Monday I told the guidance counselor what happened.The science teacher compared my exam to the students around me and found that the two students on either side of me failed. The student ahead and behind me both passed with less than a 75 and the students who did well were across the room from me. Nevertheless he continued to claim I cheated because in his opinion, I could not bring my understanding of the course curriculum up to the top of the class in 9 days.Mrs. Rouse, the guidance counselor was better than her word, I was told that she, and he had a huge and loud argument in front of the Dean of Boys and the principal, after which my grade was posted. He passed me and I graduated High School on time. There was no claim of cheating.That experience had an effect on me. It taught me to give people the benefit of the doubt if I didn’t know something for sure. It taught me to respect tough old no nonsense women a whole lot more than sarcastic jerks. It also taught me to dislike arrogant sarcastic jackass authority figures, which is a trait I should have learned to conceal but was never completely able to.

I’m not a science teacher formally, but I remember my college-chemistry class in high school where my teacher conducted a demonstration that I remember 50 years later. He punched a nail hole in the center of the lid of a one-gallon paint tin, pounded in down in place, punched holes all around the base with the sharp end of an old-fashioned can opener, set it bottom-down on the bench, plucked the tubing off a bunsen burner and stuck it through one of the punched holes at the base—all of the time talking about some other aspect of chemistry that was not as memorable. He turned on the gas, which filled up the can with natural gas, and soon turned it off—pulling out the tube and going on with his lecture about stoichiometry, or atomic mass, or pH, or something else. We all see the can sitting there, but have no idea yet what it’s for. After several minutes and the dissipation of any natural gas residues, he pauses in his talk, whips out a match, and lights the top of the can, which shows a two-inch flame—and goes on with his talk. Minute after minute, the flame gets shorter and shorter. And many minutes more, we can’t see it at all. He’s going on with his talk. More talk, more talk, and then suddenly, the gas in the can explodes and the lid goes flying into the ceiling. Then he stops his talk and asks us, “What just happened?”We spent the next few minutes interacting with him on topics of differential gas densities, air-fuel mixtures, burning versus exploding, oxidation and reduction, etc.More recently, I designed an “epicylindrical” periodic table that high-school students can assemble to learn about the electronic substructure of elements. It assembles from a single piece of paper, printed on both sides, with the assembly instructions written on the to-be-cut-off parts. It’s not an “experiment,” but it is educational. I thought I’d share it here.

I live in a city in CA that over the past 20 years has ranking somewhere between #1 and #13 in murders per capita in the state. One year we had the distinction of being #1 in the nation. By CA standards, we are a medium sized city though in many states we would be the largest city in the state. Currently, our population is about 320,000.I was born in this city well over 50 years ago and at that time most every household had a gun and there were few gun regulations. Now maybe 25% of the households have at least one gun, we rank in the top 3 in the nation in gun regulation and probably somewhere in the top 3 in murders and other violent crimes (or very close). Gun control is not working.One does not need a license to own a gun in CA. By now it would not make a difference, there are so many gun laws even most police officers are not aware of most of them. I am a member of CA largest gun rights organization and regularly people come online to report being stopped for a perfectly legal gun and the gun is confiscated or the person was arrested. They get a referral to the best gun rights attorney closest to them. CA has the largest number of attorneys per capita, police have a tendency to arrest and then let the DA figure it out. Public defenders are overworked and may give you 5 minutes before you go before a judge. It is better to have your own attorney even if you have to beg, borrow, and steal to get the money. It is part of the cost of living in CA. Everything is more expensive here.Several years ago, a federal suit was filed because of prison over crowding. The solution was to release half of the prisoners. Only the non-violent offenders were to be released. I learned that they had to change the definition of non-violent crimes to meet the goal. Rape an unconscious person became non-violent even if you first hit the women over the head to make her unconscious. That could also be prosecuted as a misdemeanor because the state did not want to overcrowd prisons. Use a gun to rob someone, but did not pull the trigger, non-violent misdemeanor. Steal a gun from a home, it was now a misdemeanor if the gun’s value was less than $900 and the police pretty much always write the value up as less than $900.Misdemeanors get sent to county jails where they get out in a few days because those jails are over crowded. Crime does pay. Now, even for felonies the consequence is ankle bracelet and a couple of years unsupervised probation. There are not enough probation officers.Use a gun to defend your family from a home invasion where the 3 thugs kicking in the door and start shooting at you, be ready to be arrested and have your house searched for firearms. They will file every firearm violation against you they can. You will be told you should have called 911 and wait for the police to respond. In my city, the average police response time during the day is 4 hours, on a Friday or Saturday night it is 8 to 12 hours, and that is for an emergency of someone is in my home with a gun and shooting at my family. You get, officers will get there as soon as they can, we will call you back in an hour or two to see how you are.I am a high school teacher. What do you think happens to the majority of students who bring a gun to school? Police involvement and arrest? No, they do not want to ruin the kid’s future with a police record and we are under pressure to reduce suspensions and expulsions by the state. This means if we do not do it the state takes away money. They demand the schools have to be safer. So what happens, the gun is confiscated, the student is placed into behavioral intervention (in-school suspension for defiance). An administrator drops the gun in a dumpster before leaving campus that evening. Custodians cover it up with the trash after wards and nobody is the wiser.I spoke to a few police officers about it and they know. If the student was arrested, they would be taken to Juvenile hall, the parents called, and then released. At the hearing they would be told to not do it again and released. There is no place to house any but the worse of the worse juvenile offenders.Every year our taxes go up, crime goes up, and services get cut. A dozen more restrictive gun laws get passed and the law makers promise these will be the ones that lower gun crime. Gun crimes still increase and the cycle is repeated.Next year we get to go through background checks to buy ammo. We are not legally able to buy online and have it shipped to our homes. People are so fed up with the laws they are doing what they always have, they ignore the laws. CA has made so many things illegal to buy in the state or added fees to things so they cost more than buying out of state. CA is long and narrow and many live a few hours from OR, NV or AZ. So we drive out of state and buy what we cannot buy here and drive it back. Electronic equipment has a recycling fee added as well as tires. These things can be purchased cheaper out of state. It is illegal to buy ammo out of state and import it back into state without having it sent to a CA FFL. It is unenforceable so people just do it.Those magazines that hold more than 10 rounds that are banned in CA, how do criminals get them? From out of state as well as regular gun owners who know the laws are stupid. All CA has done is pass so many laws the law abiding have become so fed up about they no longer care about following the law.To buy a gun from a private party requires going to a FFL and paying a $35 fee and waiting 10 days. This started around 1994 (I am not sure the exact year). There are still older gun owners who do not know about this and sell to each other without the background check. There are others that know about the law and do not care.Guns are easy to make, especially today. Parts can be purchased online. The part that is considered the firearm can be purchased in an unfinished condition and using everyday tools it can be completed and put together to make a functional firearm. People reload ammunition. These activities can be made illegal and they will still happen.Businesses and people are leaving CA. Taxes are too high and there are too many laws that attempt to control everyone’s behavior.The politicians keep passing laws and do not care if they are legal. They then spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal fees defending the laws against legal challenges to have them ultimately overturned. This is happening with some of the gun laws they pass. Our only hope is the next governor will likely push some new laws that cross the line to way pass unconstitutionality that a few of the most restrictive gun control laws will be overturned. There is some hope that will happen.No matter, I will be another leaving this hellhole of a state sometime between 1 and 4 years from now. It used to be a great place to live. When I retire, my retirement will not allow me to survive at the poverty level here while I can sell my house, move to another state with lower taxes, buy a house with land and have half the money from the sale of my CA house left over to invest. My retirement check will allow me to live comfortably and I can still put 25% of it away to invest. I can then find a part time job because I have to have something to do.I could even teach another 10 years in another state and become invested in their retirement system and then draw retirement from two systems. There are a few states that will pay me a higher salary than CA because I have a science credential, and the US has a shortage of 50,000 science teachers, CA is short 25,000 and teacher salary has stagnated. I have not had a raise in 8 years.