@CM:
let me guess--you go to a public school, right?

@Baum: Yes, why?

I would just like to say that my public school district was wonderful.

"you're only crazy if you're an Anglican"

:-)

Well, my project was due today. Yesterday I wnet over to my partner's house and got the stuff for my project. Me and my dad worked on it for 9 hours. It was extremely difficult, because the hot glue gun I borrowed from my partner sucked and only squirted a tiny bit out at a time (and by tiny, I mean tiny). So today we had the competition. The project was a balsa wood tower. The winner was the team with the most efficient tower (efficiency was calculated by the weight the tower could hold in Newtons divided by the weight of the tower in grams). The winning tower weighed 41 grams and held 2140.45 Newtons, for a score of 52.2. My tower weighed 69 grams and held a weight of 427.2 Newtons for a score of 6.2. I got 2nd to last place. If my partner had been cooperative, or if I had a better hot glue gun, or if my science teacher had done something, I would have gotten a better score. But instead I get a C-. Oh well, as long as I do good on the test tomorrow, I should still get a B+ in my science class.

How did you design the tower?

@Bask: It was 12 inches tall, and 4 by 4 at the top and bottom, as per the requirements. I was originally going to have 2 X braces on each side, however, I ran out of time and one pair of opposite side only had one brace. On the inside, I had one beam of wood running diagonal on each side, going parallel to the X braces, and right up against the X braces. The X braces crosses used knotches. That was it.

@CM:
because what you're describing sounds like the (bad) quality of education found in public schools.

@CA:
;)

@CM what grade are you in?

I too would like to say my public school district was wonderful. They did a great job preparing me for the rigors of a top 3 civil engineering program in college.

Maybe I'm just too stuck in college mode, but I figure I ought to mention that in college you would get ZERO slack whatsoever. Or at least, you should expect it.

That said, if you're in grade school or middle school, I definitely see where you're coming from.

I know that CM is getting plenty of support but I'm inclined to side with the teacher here. Especially in a Diplomacy site, I would expect more people to think that in a team project, part of the goal is to persuade your partner(s) to co-operate and contribute to meet your goals. I don't know how many pupils are in CM's class, but if half of them complained to the teacher about problems they were encountering, it would be very time-consuming to try to address those problems. So the teacher took the approach that he had set out the criteria for the project clearly and given the groups sufficient time to complete the project so no alteration of the project criteria was necessary.

I believe CM is in 8th grade (note it is science class, not Physics which would be high school). And an 8th grade teacher has to play mediator. If he doesn't want to do that or thinks it is taking too much time, he should go teach in high school or college. 8th graders aren't adults or even close to mature enough to mediate for themselves. Yes, some may be more than mature enough, but most are just kids trying to avoid school work as much as possible and not taking any responsibility for their actions. CM is, in this instance, acting more mature and trying to be responsible compared to his so called partner.

i would have reinforced the base of the tower with concrete and steel rebar. throw in a couple I beams up top and throughout the tower and some welding, you'd have gotten an A.

I feel the teacher has been a little unfair, but I can see it both ways.
keep us updated with this teacher though, if anything we can all ban together and burn his house down, with support from galacia of course

This teacher sounds like the kind of tool who thinks he can jump to Ankara Crescent from anywhere on the board.

If he really is in the 8th grade, then this teacher is a total dick.

He sounds a lot like my HS senior physics teacher. But, we were old enough to handle his style of teaching and learn from it. It was actually very helpful. But, I can't imagine doing that in the 8th grade.

I think the teacher is a jerk, mostly because I have had teachers who have done the same type of thing and I hated it. That being said, I can see where the he is coming from. Its not always about the project itself but rather about the life skills you are learning. Trust, teamwork, disappointment, leadership, covering someone's butt who doesn't deserve it... These are real-world things that you now have experience in.

His attitude in handling it was douchey, but maybe he really had your best interests in his douchey heart.

@Enoch,

I agree that those are important skills, but given the deficient of STEM students (especially women) I think he's doing more harm than good. IMHO, in 8th grade, science teachers should be doing more to get kids excited about science, not teaching them life skills to deal with incompetents and bureaucracies.

abgemacht +1

@Draugnar: I am a freshman in high school. I said science class because I am in a special academy, called the Space and Engineering Academy, so the actual name of my science class, Principles of Engineering 1, was harder to type than science class.

So, it seems like you're part of a special program within a HS that is made to be more rigorous in the STEM fields. I can now better understand your teacher's methods; although, they may still be a bit much for freshmen. It is much clearer now, though.

Also, are the photos from this current contest?

@abge: Yes, but my teacher hasn't posted this year's photos for this project yet.

@abgemacht,

I agree wholeheartedly. The root of the problem is not students with the inability to cope, it is the general lack of value placed on education by a majority of students. The teacher should be working with the student who refused to do his work, discovering the underlying problem, and helping that student escape from the cycle of bad grades=>bad attitude=>bad grades. However, that is a lot harder to do than teaching people to cope, and it requires a big picture mentality that most people never learn. So the probability is higher that the teacher misunderstood his role as an educator and tried to teach coping skills.

@CM

I attended a specialized academy for math and science as well. I struggled a lot with the teachers because the expectations were focused more on "You should learn how to learn" than "hey here is how you do calculus". I don't know if you are having the same experiences, but I encourage you to stick with it.

HAHAHA a freshman. Someone beat him up please.

I hate high school, it blows. You have 3.75 more years to look forward to of teachers being just as douchy as the one you currently have is. Simply put, your teacher is pissed at you because of the other incident and is taking it out on you with his bullshit. You go to school to learn things you will never use in life not to get some life skills. Seriously, you take English for 13 years. You can take, at max(where I live), 5 years of foreign language in anything before college. It takes 13 years to learn your native language but only 5 for a foreign? School is bullshit, it's stupid and pointless. It's a waste of tax payers dollars post 8th grade and is dumbing our society down. Everything I know I learned in elementary school and from the internet. I propose we drop high school and use the internet more.

Yay high school rant.

Iceray0 + 1

@Iceray: My teacher doesn't even know the previous incident was an incident. I never mentioned anything about it to him afterwards. I just think he doesn't like me (possibly subconsciously) because he doesn't like to have to deal with me (as I have Asperger's Syndrome).

Challenge him to a chess match, better yet, make him play me in chess. I've never in my life lost a chess match. If there was a goddess of chess, she would be pregnant with my children. I could go on for awhile but I think I'll cut it short here.