Why I say What I Say...

 “Number Nine, Number Nine.”

I say this in a very specific way sometimes. I used to say it a lot more when I was a math teacher, but even teaching science, opportunities arise for me to repeat this from time to time. 

Why? 

It comes from a Beatles song written by John Lennon. 

The funny thing is, I absolutely hate this song. It’s rubbish. I think I’ve listened to all 8 minutes of it twice. It’s awful. But the Number Nine thing stuck with me.

“Sit Ubu, sit.”

I say this sometimes when I want a student to sit down. Sometimes I add "good, dog." It comes from the end of several TV sitcoms from the 1980’s, like Family Ties. It was the sign-off at the end of the shows done by a particular production company. There was a photograph of a dog - Ubu taken at the Louvre in Paris. You could probably google what and why, but like Number Nine, it has stuck in my brain. 

Do you have things like that stuck in your head? 

Tell me about them!

The Stack of Work on the Dining Room Table

Unless we are having guests, there is pretty much always a stack of student work on my dining room table. 

This is not my wife’s favorite thing. She likes the house to look nice whether people are coming over or not, and she does not consider a stack of papers a great look.

If I don’t do grading for a while, the pile grows day by day until it gets to a point where I HAVE to start grading it. Trust me, if I don’t get around to it, my wife will ask me “What’s up with all those papers on the table?”

This is something to be avoided.

I think teachers tend to make new school year resolutions in September in addition to the regular New Year’s resolutions. Mine is almost always “get the grading done quickly.” I think I’m doing better than I have in the past, but sometimes its a struggle.

So, when I say “There is a big pile of student work on my dining room table,” I’m not kidding.

Gravity Always Wins

If you lean back in your chair, at some point friction will fail, your chair will slip and gravity will pull you down to the floor. It will pull you down and pull you down fast!

If you lean over too far in your chair, gravity will drag you right off the seat and you will end up in a heap on the floor wondering what happened. 

If you only put part of your chair upside down on the table at the end of the day, it will slip and accelerate until it meets the floor. <Crash!>

Chromebooks, notebooks and textbooks do not levitate - if not placed securely on a table or desk, gravity will do its thing.

Of course, we all know this, yet somehow, someone or something crashes to the floor in the science lab each and every day. Water spills, pencils end up under tables, Do Nows litter the floor, and glue sticks regularly roll across the lab benches and land the floor.

I have read that when astronauts return to Earth from long stays on the International Space Station, they expect they can "float" things next to them as they did in space. But, that doesn't work so well on Earth. 

Gravity always wins.