Whoa!

Teaching the Bio 200 labs are challenging. The material is introductory biology but very broad. Going through it myself I know it can be hard but you push though it. The labs are simple. The protocols are like cooking, you follow it step by step and there are no problems and their questions require no thinking because if they read their manuals the answers come straight from it. This is the final week of actual lab, next week I hold a review and the week after is their practicals.

Every week I give a lecture explaining the objectives, the relevance and what they are doing for the lab that day. I teach 4 labs which is roughly 85 students total. I had this one particular student today (who has already been on my bleep list already) come and ask me what do we need to do today immediately after the lecture. I told her to go sit down and read the lab (this is week 8!!! hello McFly!!!). Then she sends this guy up to ask me the same question, which has happened before. I grunted back my irritation and asked what can't they understand. It seemed to be everything. I told him step by step what to do. The group was already behind the other 5 by now. After checking with everyone they were further behind. Without any more details, the girl decided to not follow the instructions I gave her lab member and decided she was going to do the lab how she felt and "F" (sorry) the whole thing up because she didn't understand. I had my very first BLOW UP ever on a student. I wasn't screaming but I had a clearly fed up raised voice and talked to her without name calling like she was and idiot. I couldn't believe what just happened when I was done (and all starring at me). It happens in other labs but never mine. I'm more in disbelief that I let it get under my skin but man she didn't understand what labeling the test tubes meant.

I did walk away from that group and converse with the others to cool down. When I went back to the group I was as cool as a cucumber (I will admit I did feel better :/)