Reflections III: Learning, Part II

A 5-part blog entry

Note: Pictures to follow!

As a college student, I can say one of the biggest reliefs of graduating high school was leaving behind physics. Don't get me wrong, as a high school student I loved the math and science subjects, I was even part of the Science club my entire high school life. The one science subject I just really didn't enjoy was physics. Having had to take it in my senior year, I can say that physics was one of the walls I had to break to graduate with honors. One of the 'initiation rites', if you will, in that course was the dreaded egg drop. You could just feel my excitement (or rather the absence thereof) when our professor for the Literacy Training Service (LTS) Program told us that was our next activity.

Whoop-de-do.

Not sure whether the prayers are for me or the egg.
From: supermemes.net

Collaboration

Thankfully this was a group work of three members, and collaboration for ideas was very effective! Another thing I was thankful for was the fact that while in high school we were only allowed to use straws to construct an egg chamber, for our LTS class we were allowed virtually any material we could get our hands on. And this is where being an arts student pays off.

Silicon, my friend.

Our plan seemed great. We would get a simple plastic jar, stuff it with newspaper and place the egg in. On one of our online meetings, I suggested using a silicon chamber to protect the egg and act as an additional cushion. I'm not sure why I suggested it in the first place. In hindsight, I'm not sure what purpose the silicon had - sure it would cushion the egg to some extent, but overall I think it was unnecessary.

Preparation

It was Sunday evening. LTS sessions were on Monday mornings. I quickly prepared the silicon casing (which was prepared days prior), set the container and stuffed it with crumpled balls of newspaper. I tried placing the silicon casing in, making sure it wouldn't be too loose inside. Once I was satisfied, I placed the egg in and closed the lid.

The following morning I arrived at the university. I wondered from which floor we would drop our egg chambers. In high school, we dropped the egg chambers from the 5th floor. That was 5 relatively-low floors. The College of Education, where the LTS Program was based, has 3 high floors. 3 intimidatingly-high floors. You could just imagine how nervous I felt when I realized this. The nervousness was compounded when I saw some of my classmates with BALLOONS attached to their egg chambers.

Eggs eggs eggs

Our professor asked for volunteers on which groups wanted to drop their chambers first - three groups of three members each in a batch; one to drop the chamber, one to act as a spotter on the ground floor, and the last member could go accompany any of the other two.

I wanted to see what would happen to the other groups, so I waited for the time being. The first batch of groups made their way to the third floor, and on our professors' count to three, each group dropped their chambers. Everyone held their breaths as each representative released their chambers and waited as each precious egg in their supposedly-protective cases dropped to the ground. Time seemed to stretch for those few seconds as we watched the chambers plummet to the ground. Lo and behold, the entire first batch was a success! Each of the three groups' eggs remained whole.

I wanted to get this over with and just drop the thing. So I volunteered to be part of the second batch and climbed to the third floor, clutching the newspaper-filled plastic container. I looked down and was extremely thankful I wasn't born an egg.

Our professor counted.

One.

Arms outstretched, fingers ready to let go of the container.

Two.

A gulp. Just let go.

Three.

Release.

I see the white blur of the plastic container fall to the ground.

A loud crack is heard. I hear it all the way in the third floor.

Oh shoot.

I see my group mates run over to the spot where our chamber landed, and I rush down the stairs to see the extent of the damage. The lid is broken and disregarded to one side, we slowly and carefully lift the silicon out of the container and open it, grimacing at what we knew was inside. And to our surprise, the egg is unscathed. We each sigh in relief as our professor takes pictures of our dumbstruck, relieved faces.

What happened next was a blur. More batches of groups dropped their egg chambers. Some as elaborate as being held by toothpicks and garter, some simple as a Manila-paper parachute and a bottle, and some as interesting as a tin can with cornstarch. Out of all 15 groups, though, only one egg broke because the chamber was dropped too far and bounced off a railing on the way down.

What and how

We were all eventually herded back to our classroom for a post-activity discussion, and we listened to an interesting lecture on looking not at what we learned, but instead focusing on how we learned. It was an important detail to point out. Most of us probably remember the joy of learning when we were in kindergarten. The way our teachers would make everything a game to make us learn a simple concept like addition or colors is always a happy recollection. But as we grow older most of us probably just learn to pass. The passion may still be there, but we are forced by limiting factors such as time constraints to just cram things in our minds.

Physics, for example. We memorize formulae, laws and constants and when the exams come, we apply them. But how much do we really know? The egg drop experiment (more then than now, to be honest) really helped us understand what we were doing. Practical application of basic laws was the key to hurling a chamber - from a three or five-storey building, it technically makes no difference - without damaging the egg inside. For a subject such as physics, these types of hands-on experiments are perfect.

Our professor stressed that working hands-on is important for grasping and applying concepts - this was a lesson that we as future teachers had to keep in mind. This coming Monday, we'll be visiting our assigned schools for the first time. The kids we'll be handling are in a very young and crucial stage of development. It's both a challenge and an honor to get to work with these kids. Hopefully, when we do meet the kids, we'll be able to give them a good time so they can enjoy learning just as much as we did when we were there age.

Looking forward to it!