This has to be one of the funniest and most creative new blogs online. Fact.
Chemistry – A-level/undergraduate level
This is a frustratingly inconsistent approach to writing chemical formulae. On the one hand the teacher has gone to the trouble of also using structural formulae to improve clarity (eg H2N2O2 could be nitramide, but the addition of HO-N=N-OH makes it clear that we are dealing with hyponitrous acid here), but then writes SI (sulphur iodine) instead of Si (silicon) in the formula for orthosilicic acid. This, combined with not using subscripts for many of the numbers, could lead to a great deal of confusion.
Whilst this lesson appears to be aimed at quite a high level, such elementary errors may affect comprehension.
5/10 – rather sloppy.
1 + 1 = 2
Mathematics – university/nursery school level.
This is clearly an extremely advanced level mathematical course, focusing on the Peano axioms for the natural numbers which formalised mathematics in the late 19th century. This course would culminate with Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem which shows that the consitency of the Peano axioms cannot be formalised within Peano arithmetic itself.
Alternatively, it could be that the pupil, even at her advanced age, hasn’t grasped that 1 + 1 = 2, and that all the after school one-to-one lessons in the world aren’t going to work. Indeed, she probably won’t even understand what ‘one-to-one’ means.
8/10 – loses two marks for ‘math’.
English – college level.
Ms Prince is setting her stall out early in this introductory course with a list of unacceptable behaviour in her class. Classroom discipline is extremely important to prevent disruption to other students, and also to encourage an individual work ethic. Few would argue with rules against tardiness, gum and talking. Regular assessment is also important for both teacher and pupil, but there are other ways of doing this than a weekly quiz.
“No slang” is a more controversial statement for an English teacher. Language, especially English, is a living, breathing thing. Where would classics from Ullyses to Trainspotting be without their coined words and vernacular language? Of course formal English is important, but even, some would say especially, an introductory English course should look at the differences between types of English and their appropriate uses.
“No ebonics” is an even more controversial statement for what is presumably an ethnically diverse cohort. Ever since Brown v Board of Education declared separate public schools for black and white children unconstitutional in 1954, educators have been divided over the use of African American Vernacular English. Some see it as socially limiting and to be eliminated, whilst others recognise it as a language in its own right, to be incorporated into the teaching of black children. Poe, Melville and Twain have all used AAVE – handled correctly it could be a very interesting and inclusive project to study its use.
Handwriting could be much improved, especially for an English teacher. There seems to be a bizarre mixture of upper and lower case. Of course, great artists break the rules, and non-standard capitalisation can be used to great effect, but on an introductory course perhaps this is one rule that shouldn’t be broken.
6/10 - more detail needed.