Tonight my daughter, who is taking my DP HL biology class in year 1, listened patiently as I told her about this cool article that I just read in HHMI bulletin, in which parasites have multiple surface proteins which they can change at will; often in response to a mounted immune response. Wow! This is something exactly on the topic of "cell membranes" which we took a test on this week Monday. Tomorrow I plan to use the reading in class.
However, the point of this post is to say that Kylie explained, "When we are in your class it feels like we are just poking along, not really moving very fast, then suddenly a test. Voila - we all get A's! We wonder when we learned all that stuff? It's not like other classes." Wow - what could be sweeter to a teacher than hearing that?
And it is my goal: providing a context in which students are exposed to the amazing-ness of life, we read about it, we study it, we experiment with it and as we go along students learn - without having to grind it out. What a wonderful job I have! :)
From: http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/nov2010/features/surface_proteins.html
4 November 2010