Two days each week, for two classes of inner city middle school students, for the next four weeks, I'm supposed to teach human biology. A fun proposition as most of you can imagine. I pretty much have free reign for these classes, and was mulling over what exactly to teach these children who can't stay in their seats for about 5 seconds. Seriously, when I walked into the class it was about as chaotic as a multi vehicle accident. This was also during class when the teacher was speaking. It was as bad as something out of fiction.

I was thinking about having the courses each have a 'message' of sorts, mainly to not abuse the hell out of your body (I don't know if I can actually get anyone interested in biology or anything lofty like that). I was going to start with the heart and circulatory system, then go to respiratory, metabolism, then end with some nervous system stuff, highlighting abuse of each and what it results in (with copious amounts of gruesome pictures showing "here's what your ____ looks like after ____"). The basic format s going to be a question and answer session type deal (I ask a question, such as "is the heart a bone?"), with their answers sort of steering the discussion. I'm not quite sure how that will work out, all things considered.

At my disposal is a number of plastic models of each organ and a few cell types, as well as a $50,000 monstrosity that is the most blatant waste of money I've ever seen. It's basically a PC with a projector on it, plus some USB attachments that measure oxygenation in the blood. Anyway, enough about bashing the school's questionable purchases...

I have a feeling that there are ways I can take better advantage of these sessions. Again, I have these kids for about an hour a day, two times a week, and I can teach them anything I want about human biology. There is really no goal or anything else strangely enough; I guess when my school offered a med student to help with some classes, they jumped on it rather quickly.

middle school kids are impossible. I've tried teaching them how to work as a team in a longboat before, DOES NOT WORK. Those were the only people i've ever known to smash the mizzen mast into a rock without capsizing the boat.

Get them active. Have an exercise or some kind of activity that gets them on their feet. They might complain, but they'll probably enjoy it a lot more than sitting around listening to you lecture. You just have to keep enough control so that they do generally what you ask them to do.

Also, circular classroom seating might not work for all courses, but I've found it puts everyone at a much more quiet and attentive place because the teacher can see everyone at once, and it's very difficult to talk while someone else is talking in the circle. It also puts everyone at the same level. Might not work for your kids or curriculum, though.

Become Edward James Olmos.

Unfortunately, you're fighting an uphill battle. There's multiple forces from the students, the school, the parents and state/federal government making these kids underachieve. And honestly, there's not much you can do about it. Which is why underprivileged schools have such a high teacher turnover rate. But I'm thinking about becoming a biology teacher, so I'd like to hear about your experiences when this is all over.

OK first off

(I am an EDU major by the by, I have used this stuff in a classroom and found success, in multiple types of classroom)

It's a lot of work, but you should plan out exactly what you are going to talk about each session, and in the course of that think of questions the students could ask and provide yourself with answers. This will help greatly when you go with the question and answer approach. But most importantly, if you know exactly what you are going to be doing, then you have time to manage the classroom.

Secondly, open the lesson with something that grabs their interest or poses a question. The goal of any lesson is to relate the subject to the students life and everyday experiences, if you don't you will have your students asking or thinking to themselves "Why are we learning this, this is pointless." The connection doesn't have to fit completely, but there should be some tie between your opening and the subject of the lesson.

Thirdly, I would not, repeat not just have the class session be a Q&A between you and the students. Students, especially of that age, need to have their different kinds of intelligences addressed, so it should be your goal to try and "cater" to as many as possible. You have the visual aids it would seem on hand, so that helps a lot right there. But you don't want a whole lesson to solely be one style of instruction. I would suggest group work of some kind, if you have any familiarity with the students you can break them up into groups that would work together with the right pairings and such.

The behavior will be the toughest part it sounds like, I have been in classrooms where the cooperating teacher had no control over their classroom, so why should the students listen to some student teacher who's only there two a week or however long the period is. But, you have to press on nonetheless. Try to make genuine connections with the students, show interest in what they have to say, even if it doesn't necessarily relate to the topic at hand. That part will be up with regards to moving the discussion back to the material. If you show interest, and that you care, the students will respond to that, even if it doesn't seem like it.

I like where you're going with the division of the subject material, one hour isn't as much time as you think. If you plan ahead, you can rehearse and guesstimate how the timings will play out in the classroom. If you really want to know if they learned something, the assessment part is tricky. One thing I have learned is that a simple "test" does not cut the mustard as far as knowing what content your students actually walked away with. If you want, I could try and think of a few methods and PM them to you.

These kids do want to learn, they just don't know it. That sounds cliched and trite, but its true. Our schools today don't foster a learning environment, which results in people from the outside looking in and saying "these kids can't succeed." You're obviously facing a difficult struggle, but who knows, maybe one of these lessons will cause an interest in becoming a doctor to blossom. Probably not, but that's why teachers teach. Just plan things out, have patience, and most importantly, try to have fun. If you have fun, they will have fun.

Hmm... middle school biology... that was like 3 years ago.

Well I remember...not liking notes really...but like weird diseases and stuff.

If you can, get really large posters of some nasty blood pictures and put it around the room (politically correct stuff of course)

Put some nasty extreme close up of random viruses and bacteria to catch the students attention. This might also raise some questions.

Yeah, at that age nasty looking pictures are fun (and scary lectures about diseases)

Remember kids, Smoking makes your lungs look like!
(Picture)
3 guys and a blonde run out barfing.

Sounds fun.

Hip hop and indie rock lesson themes.

It's the only way.

Teachers obviously do a lot of good, but there's only so much they can do when they're expected to babysit in a prison. If we didn't treat students like prisoners, maybe they'd stop resenting the authorities enough to "want to learn." The sorry state of affairs is that I can't think of any worse education than public schooling except for solitary confinement. Nearly any experience a kid has outside "school" is usually more educational than inside.

thanks for putting down most of the members of this site, Free. i'm sure most of us are products of the public school system, and i, for one, am offended that my own education is regarded as "inferior" to any other method. i turned out okay and am not a blithering idiot.

That's because you, like all of us products of the public school system, taught yourself most of what you know and more importantly, how to reason.

I said nothing of your education (I couldn't know your education fully even if you sat down and told me about it for five hours) — only your schooling. Schooling, especially public schooling, is hopefully a very small portion of your overall education.

Oh freelancer, you're so cute.

No he's kind of right if you think about it. Now I'm not saying that children are prisoners and are treated as prisoners. But anyone < 18 is required to stay in an area for about six hours a day by law. What happens if a truant officer comes? They haul you right back to school. If you don't want to learn something you stay there anyway to make sure that you don't cause havoc to the rest of the population.

School == one very large day-care center. Don't tell me that isn't at least 1/4 right.

JG and Freelancer are correct. Modern public schooling is like a daycare center, and unless you make an effort to learn the material on your own you won't remember any of it after that last test is written. I'd wager that every high school graduate on this forum has at least one friend who no longer has a functional understanding of simple algebra.

A lot of school is just rote memorization, too, without any meaningful substance or a chance for independent interpretation. History classes on their own are useless, as are geography classes. The course material is out-of-date in most places, and where it is current it is created by people with very strong, obvious biases. The entire public education system has been created by people with a vested interest in putting a positive spin on their own activities, if not spreading outright disinformation.

And all of this is just to acclimate children to sitting in a cramped desk for 8 hours a day, packed in together like sardines, so some day a white collar job doesn't feel quite so abhorrent. Is it really a wonder that underprivileged schools would have such poor performance? Especially considering the fact that basically none of these people are going to go to university or have any interest in sitting at a desk for the rest of their lives?

The worst part of it is Bush's solution to the problem - that is, punishing schools with low test scores (usually the least-funded schools) by taking away even more funding. This is why rich people shouldn't be allowed to enter politics.

anyone capable of being elected to public office should under no circumstances be allowed to perform the duties of said office.

I've gotta say, I'm glad I've been going to an alternative school system. Most of my classes are hands on, in the field. I'm learning science by driving out to various stations along a creek and taking water samples, and the temperature. I then go back to the classroom and measure dissolved oxygen and turbidity. I'm learning marine skills by getting out on boats sailing, leadership skills by leading a group of other students on the boat.. My english class involves going to a coffee shop>_>