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The let's-be-honest-rarely-posted-on-Friday-playlist plus bonus interview

I skipped a week in here somewhere, but I think my nephew helped me with my last playlist. In return for me helping him with a science project. He needed to interview a chemistry teacher. I tried to be serious as to not hurt his grade. But I just couldn't do it. Here is the interview more or less.


Q1. what degrees do you have, and from where?
A: 1. Interdisciplinary science from Texas Tech (BS degree, really that is the abbreviation...I am not shortening a cussword).
and a Masters in Multidisciplinary Scinece from UTA ( MA degree).
Q2. what are the daily duties of a chemistry teacher?
A. daily duties: light stuff on fire, put it out before the fire alarms go off, fix the copy machine, grade lots of paper, support Starbucks, reply to crazy parent emails, and all that other junk the school makes you do. (or more seriously if your teacher does not have a sense of humor...make copies, set up labs, print MSDS sheets, grade papers, grades some more papers, explain to parents why their kid is failing, try to have some adult conversation at lunch, convince 170 students that they should wear their goggles on their eyes and not their foreheads, grade some more papers, teach a few kids who were nice enough to show up after school how to convert moles to grams AGAIN...and get the junk out of there so you can go home and grade some more papers. worry about 9 pm that maybe you left the gas on or a hotplate on and go back to school and make sure everythign is turned off).
Q3.do you like the job?
A. most days. i mean yes, i like teaching. but there are bad days like everything else. On the up side. It is never boring, and I never have to wonder if what I do is important. I sleep better at night knowing that my students can balance equations (kidding). I also work with some people that I love and we play jokes and laugh alot sometimes making me forget that I am working at all.

Q4. what is the starting salary?
4. crap. just kidding. But it was 11 years ago. Low 20s. Now I think they start around 40,000.

Q5. what advice would you have for someone going into this field?
5. Wear your safety goggles, learn how to mix solutions. Lighting things on fire is always a good idea. The more demos you have up your sleeve the better. Figure out exactly how much smoke it takes to set off the fire alarms and try to avoid that. Make friends with the secretary and the janitor. Learn which APs can take a joke and mean deadlines and which ones don't. Convince your spouse that grading papers is fun. Name your kids after elements on the periodic table. Just makes things easier.
Let's hope his teacher has a sense of humor. Also, I'm not really a chemistry teacher.....so I hope she also doesn't mind purjery.


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Unknown said…
Love the playlists!
October 9, 2010 at 3:46 PM
Hyacynth said…
hahahah. I love your list of daily tasks, especially including supporting Starbucks.
Also, if his teacher doesn't find that interview amusing, she/he needs to lighten up.
I love the falling slowly song.
October 10, 2010 at 5:21 AM
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