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Author Archives: Mr. Bigler
Your Wish is My Command
Every year, on the first day of school, I subject my classes to a ruse in which I eat a “candle”. I get out a candle holder and put a candle inside it. I lead a class discussion in which … Continue reading
Saving Grandpa’s Life: The Value of Science Education
My father, the wonderful and caring person whom my students can blame for much of my sense of humor, is in the hospital. (He’s doing well and should be released in a few days.) While my fourteen-year-old daughter Margaret didn’t … Continue reading
Senior Prank 2014
This morning, Lynn English’s Class of 2014 pulled their senior prank, which was a brief, raucous party in the third-floor corridor of the school. Students had various types of party noisemakers. They filled the hallways with confetti as they sang, … Continue reading
How a Fuse Works
My physics classes are studying electricity. One of the demos I do for electricity is to show how a fuse works by exploding a strand of wire. +19-6
Childhood Regained
Three years ago, I taught a one-year stint in a “no excuses” charter school. (It was the least satisfying year of my teaching career.) The biology teacher and I started a science team. Problem solving and building things with power … Continue reading
The Ninety-Five Percent Solution
One of my father-in-law’s astute observations of human behavior is that most people do not correctly perceive ratios or probabilities less than 5% or greater than 95%. A greater-than-95% chance of something occurring becomes irrationally either “It definitely will happen,” … Continue reading
Self-Esteem Starts With Esteem
A couple of days ago, I received a voice mail inviting me (personally) to audition for America’s Got Talent. This amused me, and prompted me to post it to Facebook, asking the rhetorical question “I wonder what they think I … Continue reading
I’m Better Than My Progress Report
Mid-quarter progress reports were handed out at the end of the day today. When I mentioned them at the end of one of my classes, one of my students looked a little sad. I asked if her progress report was … Continue reading
Poverty and Cognitive Ability
I just read an article with an interesting finding in Science News: “Poverty may tax thinking abilities.” The research, originally published in Science, claims that financial concerns that arise from living in poverty “damages reasoning abilities about as much as going … Continue reading