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Old 12-03-2011, 06:45 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,654,830 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
Some of the parents of kids I teach need to read this. There is NOTHING wrong with a B in chemistry!!!

Seriously, it's my B students who really learn in my class. My A students just memorize well for tests, most of the time. Right now, about 20% of my students have earned A's (yes they earned them) but only three ask higher order questions. Sometimes they ask ones I can't even answer. (Seriously, if anyone can explain why mercury is liquid at room temperature while other metals are not, please PM me )

I was almost a straight A student in college and I can attest that the classes I got the B's in were the ones that really taught me something. The ones I got A's in I slept through. They were just too easy.

As long as my kids can look me in the eye and tell me they did their best, I'm ok with their grades.
Mercury is a liquid at room temperature because the 6s (and all lower energy levels) is filled which causes a relativistic contraction of the 6s orbital. This pulls everything closer to the nucleus, and weakens interaction between molecules.

Why it "pulls in" is a function of the volume of the nucleus to its electron cloud.
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Old 12-03-2011, 07:46 PM
 
17,183 posts, read 22,792,872 times
Reputation: 17472
1. Instill a love of learning - this may include conversations around the dinner table on subjects of interest, watching educational documentaries together and discussing them, visiting museums and historical sites and botanical gardens, etc., encouraging your children's dreams and interests, reading to them when they are young and discussing the books they read when they get older.

2. Get involved with your child's school by volunteering, helping his or her teacher with any projects, etc. You can also be involved in classes that your child is not in. You may also want to enroll in classes for yourself as that can be stimulating and give your child the idea that education is for everyone even adults.

3. Try to figure out your child's learning style so you can help him be productive on his school assignments. Is he an auditory learner (songs and poems might work well for memorizing facts)?
Is she a visual learner? (doing art related to the assignment may be helpful or watching a video or movie). Is he a tactile learner? (he might make up a dance or use legos to model things to help him learn the concepts).

4. If she is struggling, don't hesitate to have her ask for help. Getting a tutor or having some after school help with a teacher may be just the trick to get her up to speed.

5. Encourage good study habits. There is a great book that gives parents help with this. It's called Ending the Homework Wars. Provide a routine, have a special place for studying, you may even want to track the time. The kitchen table is often a good place for homework.
http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Homewor.../dp/0977467406

6. Communicate with your child's teacher. Email works fine for this, btw. Many schools have teacher websites too. If your child has something happen that is going to throw him off for the day, it helps to let the teacher know. By the same token, the teacher should be communicating with you.
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Old 12-04-2011, 09:48 AM
 
2,612 posts, read 5,568,244 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stone28 View Post
I hear many people advise "show interest" or "be involved" but those terms are vague. I would really like some detailed advise of what can a parent do to help children do well in school.
1 - read with them and take them lots of places, like museums, events, etc.
2 - join the PTA at the school, attend all the meetings, become an officer if you can
3 - attend all school functions, parent-teacher conferences, anything at all that is going on at the school
4 - check books, notebooks and homework every single night - know exactly what is being taught in the classroom every week and what your child is expected to be able to do
5 - keep in contact with the teacher - that can mean stopping by to talk at pickup after school, emailing, etc. Don't wait for the parent-teacher conference that happens once a year, or for the teacher to contact you and tell you something is wrong. Ask regularly how things are going.
6 - don't be afraid to ask questions, talk to the principal, be a pain in the neck, etc. The more visible you are in the school, the better your child's treatment is likely to be - whether teachers like you or hate you, it doesn't matter, just that you are present in their lives.
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Old 12-05-2011, 02:13 PM
 
Location: Central Ohio
10,808 posts, read 14,876,654 times
Reputation: 16471
Quote:
Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28 View Post
Encourage them Support their dreams. Spend time with them. Trash the video games. Do not allow the TV to become a babysitter. Learn with them.
I would advocate trashing television altogether. Especially with the real young you won't miss television a bit after a month of withdrawal.

Use the $100/month you save on the cable bill to visit museums and libraries. Books are nice and if you spend time with your children nobody will be bored.

When ours were growing up we had a fast rule never to have television on during the week except the 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm news hour.

We were never bored and my kids never missed it.
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Old 12-05-2011, 06:02 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,429,028 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
Mercury is a liquid at room temperature because the 6s (and all lower energy levels) is filled which causes a relativistic contraction of the 6s orbital. This pulls everything closer to the nucleus, and weakens interaction between molecules.

Why it "pulls in" is a function of the volume of the nucleus to its electron cloud.
If it were the relativistic size of the nucleus, compared to the electron cloud, I'd expect to see the same reversal in the 6p elements compared to the 5p elements but we don't. We only see this reversal in the 5d sub level in the last three elements as we move towards a filled 5d sublevel (but the other elements in 5d have atomic radii that are the same as the 4d so there was no increase from the 4d to the 5d for them). There's a, clear, reversal in the trend for atomic size getting larger going down the table for the last three elements in the 5d sub level then we enter the 6p and we go back to atomic size increasing as we go down the table.

I haven't been able to find what it but I'm looking for a diagram that shows the relative positions of all of the sub levels through 6p. I'm thinking that maybe the 5d isn't as far from the 4d as the 4d is from the 3d resulting in the increased positive nucleus overriding the increased size due to adding an energy level farther out. I feel like I'm grasping at straws here though. Why just the last three getting smaller if it's the increased size of the nucleus? I'm puzzling my puzzler tonight....

What's even more puzzling is that gold has an even smaller radius and higher electronegativity and it's not a liquid at room temperature. It's soft but not liquid. There has to be something else in play here. Of course, Gold doesn't have a full 6s sub level but, again, if it has to do with stable configurations, I'd expect to see the same thing in the last couple elements in the 6p sub level but we don't....things that make you go HMMMM?

Edited to add: Dang, I found it. While the 5d is closer to the 4d than the 4d is to the 4d, so is the 6p from the 5p compared to the 5p to the 4p which means if this is due to the effect of the larger nucleus, we should see the trend continue into the P block. We don't. I have half a dozen students who will blow this theory to pieces. I want to say it's the impact of the filled 4f sub level but that same filled 4f sub level is under the 6p as well as the 5d.

I wonder how many posters I just bored to sleep???

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 12-05-2011 at 06:23 PM..
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Old 12-05-2011, 07:17 PM
 
32,516 posts, read 37,042,199 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
I wonder how many posters I just bored to sleep???
Not me.
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Old 12-05-2011, 07:53 PM
 
13,250 posts, read 33,393,804 times
Reputation: 8098
Umm, can you all take that science stuff into some other room so there's some forum space for the OP?
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Old 12-06-2011, 12:00 AM
 
Location: San Diego, CA
24 posts, read 26,014 times
Reputation: 15
You must never forget that your children are still kids. You must choose some friendly way to help them with their studies. If a child is taught in a friendly and interesting way then the child starts liking his studies whereas if you keep forcing things on them then your child will take his studies as a burden
So let them be what they are, if they are happy in some other activity, go ahead and help them enhance their those skills.
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Old 12-06-2011, 06:06 AM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,429,028 times
Reputation: 14692
I got it. I just wanted to say that LKB's right. After thinking on it, I realized I why the same would not apply to the electrons in the p sub level.
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Old 12-06-2011, 11:02 AM
 
2,495 posts, read 4,345,132 times
Reputation: 4935
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sagitarrius48 View Post
I did read ALL of your posts, but just quoted this last one....so to clarify as it IS part of what is being discussed:



What you are saying here to me is that you will not tolerate (and that is a very strong word) anything below an A. Or am I misinterpreting it?

AND


For some students, a C or a B is not a low standard, especially in an AP class where perhaps, chemistry is not the forte of the student, but the parents or school (if the child is in a program such as AVID), forces the child to take it, or the child is taking 2-4 other AP classes AND is active in other things. So to me, getting an A in food prep if all the other classes are honors or AP, I would be fine with it.

I just wanted you to think about all that you are saying....for to be honest, that is what the parents of the two students who died felt as well. They felt they knew their child's potential better than their child and would not tolerate anything lower than an A. Are you ok with your children getting B's???? That is all I want to know.
lol, i'm glad we reside in a country where everyone can raise their children however they want. Please stick to your model and i'll stick to mine. I couldnt care less what you consider to be a strong language. I will not make excuses for my children though. My responsibility as a parent is to guide and help them to reach their potential. And just as my parents did when I was in school, i will do the same. All the best.
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