STEAM, STEM With Art Is Busting Out All Over

 

Getting Student Attention, and Everybody Else's Too

One way to get your students' attention is to plan a competitive event that appeals to them and everybody.  This recounts one such event, a Rocket Competition.

It happened that my sixth grade students never had flown a rocket, much less competed in flying them.  So, naturally I had to plan it out over a longer period of time than just a week.  I got permission to start a school identified rocket club.  I developed lessons on rocketry and the history of rocketry.  

Given that the Columbia Space Shuttle had just recently disintegrated before our eyes as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere because of a hole in its wing, space was fresh on my students' minds.

Artist rendition of Columbia STS disintegrating on reentry

I remembered a small rocketry outing I put together several years before and used the concept for the Deady Rocket Science Club (The DRS Club for short).  And I felt it would be a great learning experience and tribute to the fallen astronauts if we honored them with a small rocketry competition.

No doubt the Lord had known this sixth grade rocketry competition would occur a few years before my brother would join The Lord in Heaven.  In 1997, I developed a small Bible study called “Getting God’s Attention” for the children of single parents at my church, where I taught Bible study.  They had no dads or moms.  Though I was slightly strapped for cash at the time, I bought a few rocket kits for the kids and guided them as they built and painted them.  A couple of days later the parents, the kids and I went to launch them because I had the launch pad.

There wasn’t much open space where we were, but I figured we could safely fly and recover the rockets if we used streamers to slow the rockets’ descents enough to land without breaking their fins and without allowing the wind to make them drift into nearby trees or roof tops or highways.  Thus, it resulted in a tighter flight area.

I made a point of asking the parents ahead of time to look through their Bible and pick out a verse that conveyed special blessings they wanted their children to receive from the Lord. I told the parents to write the location of the Scripture verse on a piece of paper to give me right before the next day’s flight.

The evening before the launch, I measured out streamers for seven rockets.  The last thing to do before their launch was for me to stuff the streamers surrounded by mildly fire resistant wadding into the rocket tubes.  A reverse build-up of combustion gasses would pop out the rocket’s nosecone to which I had attached the streamers.  But without parents or children knowing it, I had written the Scripture reference their parent picked out for their child on the streamers. 

As we were getting ready to launch the rocket, I asked each child to say a little prayer as the rocket flew and that the rocket would take the prayer to The Lord.  That is how we were “Getting God’s Attention.”  The flights were amazing as the children chased their rocket trying to catch them before they hit the ground.  After recovering the rocket, the child brought their rocket to me for me to take off the streamers.

Just as I had hoped, the streamers had been protected just enough from the engine fire, but singed just a little, as though they had been through hell fire and brimstone during the flight.  The neat thing about it is that the child did not know how the Scripture verses they saw had gotten on the streamers or what the Scripture was.  So, I handed their parent a Bible and asked the parent to go over its meaning, tell their child why they picked out that specific verse for them, and tell them that this was the message we were sending to The Lord for them today.  We left the launch range that morning with children and parents embracing each other, each with tears of happiness streaming down the sides of their faces.

Four years after my brother died, almost to the day, a highly skilled cardiothoracic surgeon replaced my aortic heart valve.  Coming down with congestive heart failure about three weeks before the operation, I recall praying for the Lord to allow me to guide my sixth grade math students through a rocketry competition.

Teachers have to be very careful about linking any public school activity or lesson to religion or spiritual beliefs.  It’s really kind of ashamed, but I guess it’s a price that has to be paid to assuage the diverse beliefs society has.  Believe it or not, I never had to breach the subject of God and spiritual beliefs with my students, they occasionally would acknowledge their position without my asking them and without ever discussing it with them.

They need to know that it is not only OK to help each other out but that it is proper.  “After all, we all share something in common,” I used to tell them, “We live on the same planet.”

The Lord carried me through a celebration of achieving that about two weeks before the operation.  I purposefully used the words “carried me,” because just days before the competition I could not walk more than 10 yards before losing my breath due to fluid build-up in my lungs due to congestive heart failure.

The Lord was watching out for me, I am sure.  How did I know that?  Well, for one, He consoled me by surrounding me with students showing their love, compassion, and respect for me by surrounding me as I walked in the hall.  Out of breath after ten paces, I would go to one knee in the hall and five, six and seven students would quickly surround me in the hall; some of them rubbing gently my shoulders to give me comfort; others asking me if they could carry my books to lighten my load.

The school’s and these students’ first ever rocketry meet was a success by the grace of God.  The Lord brought in an ex-astronaut, Rick Hieb, mission specialist on STS-39 and STS-49, and payload commander on STS-65, an astronaut to be, José M. Hernández, STS-128 mission specialist and Chief of Materials and Processes at NASA, our school Principal, Daniel Martinez, Local-TV station, and HISD Community News, all to observe and reward seven students shoot their rockets.

These students were certainly wowed by the astronauts and attention they received.  But, they also experienced something they will cherish for the rest of their lives, the privilege of participating in something larger than themselves. The streamers of their rockets were woven into memorial flags that were given to the families of the fallen Columbia space shuttle astronauts.  Through the flags, the students spoke to each family member when they expressed their heartfelt feeling and condolences for their losses.

A little secret that I pass on to the teaching profession is that ALL 1500-1700 students I taught before I retired seemed to do better and be more proud of themselves and others when they were thinking outside their local sphere of life, when they could dream, envision, and apply.

 "If you can dream it, you can do it." (Walt Disney)

The blessings I received sharing rocketry with the children of single parents and allowing them an opportunity to strengthen their relationships were wonderfully memorable.  The Lord gave me double blessings right before my heart surgery by using me to sow seeds of possibilities in my low income and language challenged students.

I knew they had gotten God’s attention when one of the first things students told me when I returned to teach after a month of recovery was, “God answered my prayers, Mr. George.  Thank God that you’re back.”

You might be asking at this point, “OK, big deal; so what did everybody get out of the event(s)?  Thank you for the question.  I can think of many things, but here are just a few:

· Developed a sense of selfless noblès oblige

· Developed problem solving skills

· Developed a sense of purpose and accomplishment

· Applied their math skills

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 It's Been Awhile.

Haven't Been Slacking.

So Much To Do.

Keep Checking Back.

On the TEXAS agenda:

• Building Math Missionaries
• Peer tutoring low income ESL-LEP MS-HS mathematics students.
• Higher Order Thinking & Learning Styles
• Building Student Specific Learning Programs
• How a HS Algebra-Geometry Class (Title 1 - low income/ 99.99% ESL/LEP) achieved 100 % passing on STAR Algebra and STAR Geometry in the same year.
• Reflections of a First Year ACT MS-HS Mathematics Teacher of the Year and 2nd year MS Mathematics Department Head
• From Class Management, Lesson Planning, Evolution of Digital Teaching, to Dealing with administrators.
• Tips, lesson planning, lesson ideas

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.