Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          March 21, 2019

                               

I didn’t quite get science back in school…ever! I understood Spelling and Physical Education, but Science was almost as foreign to me as Algebra…or as I referred to it, math with letters!

Language Arts I was okay at, but didn’t really feel any attachment to dangling participles or have much interest in reading War and Peace. Why didn’t Tolstoy stop after War, and make Peace the sequel? A Tale of Two Cities! Dickens could have just made it A Story of One City and saved me a few hours!

Social Studies at that time didn’t interest me, maybe because it was right after lunch and the eyelids seemed to get heavy!

But back to science. 

I substitute taught in 8th Grade Science class yesterday. They’re studying Genetics right now. You know…what do you get when you cross a dachshund with a pig? Answer: a creature who lays beside you on the couch that you keep wanting to barbecue.

Ahhh….that sounds right, but is wrong in more ways than one!

This Genetics lesson was focused on recessive and dominant. What are the probabilities that if one parent can roll his tongue, and the other parent can’t, that their offspring will be able to do some tongue rolls? Important questions like that!

When the lesson plan went to “Dihybrid and Two-Trait Crosses” I tried to look like I had a clue about it, but even confused 8th Graders were perceptive enough to figure out that I would flunk the test if I had to take one.

In Science I’m great at taking roll and filling out the attendance slip. I can even figure out how to show an on-line video clip, but put scientific terms and theories in front of me and I’m like that first kid who gets eliminated in the spelling bee. 

“Mr. Wolfe, I need help!”

“Yes, you do!”

“Can you help me?”

“Depends on whether it requires me to be intelligent or not!”

“Well, what about this problem? In the video it said to use the F-O-I-L method as you figure out the probablities, so taking into account Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment for this one, would I-“

“Sure! Why not?”

“But I didn’t say what I would put there yet!”

“Well, I want you to think about it and just know that I have confidence in your answer.”

I run away to the shelter of my desk and pretend to be doing something vitally important for the new few moments.

8th Grade Genetics! I don’t remember studying that in 8th Grade. Okay, I don’t remember studying ANYTHING in 8th Grade, except a couple of girls when they weren’t looking!

When the final bell sounded at 2:45 and my last class filtered out the door, I was just starting to understand the whole F-O-I-L thing. I had watched the video four times! Another four to six times and I might have understood it enough to actually answer a question…if I had the master answer sheet in hand!

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This entry was posted on March 21, 2019 at 2:46 pm and is filed under children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: 8th grade, 8th grade science, 8th graders, dihybrid, genetics, middle school, middle school science, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, science class, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, two traits

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