The “Aha!” Moment

I had two “aha!” moments in my teaching this week. I love it when what I teach suddenly clicks with the students, and in one “aha!” you can see it all fall into place on their expressive faces.

The first moment came during a demonstration in a class on alcohol called “What is a drink?” As we discussed the differences between beer, wine, and liquor, students said things like, “One shot will affect you a lot more than three beers.” Oh, really?

Using food coloring and water, I simulated three drinks of beer, wine, and liquor. The “drinks” all had the same amount of food coloring (representing the alcohol content), but different amounts of water so that the liquor was more concentrated than the beer. When we poured the drinks into three different “stomachs” (2 liters bottles filled with water) the kids were stunned into silence—the three bottles were the same color! The three drinks contain the same amount of alcohol! My students now understand the “concentration” of alcohol in drinks and in our bodies, and never again will they claim that beer is “safer” because it has less alcohol than a shot.


The second “aha!” moment came during a class on puberty. I’m starting the sex ed unit with a new group of seventh graders, and we began with puberty and adolescence. I’m not sure if it was in fascination or in horror (or both), but the explanation of menstruation left the kids speechless. I use a drawn diagram, a fertile collar (to explain the cycle), and a dramatic reenactment of a fallopian tube grabbing a floating ovum (OK, maybe that was what freaked them out). They hung on every word I said as the mysteries of life (and body odor) suddenly revealed themselves. I really like teaching that unit, and I look forward to the weeks ahead.


The sex ed course feels especially relevant in light of data from a survey that my teachers and I recently did at one school. We gave anonymous questionnaires to 189 students to probe their knowledge about HIV and the prevention of STDs. 7 of the male students surveyed said that they were sexually active (4%), and given the underreporting in these surveys the number is probably higher. As much as they would like to deny it, the surveys made it clear to the teachers and to the parents that some students are sexually active, and we need to give the students the knowledge to protect themselves. An especially interesting data point was that 85% of students who were not sexually active said that HIV was very serious, but only 45% of sexually active students thought that it was serious. Their answers help us see the holes in understandings and attitudes between grades and between doers and non-doers, and I’m helping the teachers interpret the data and apply it to their teaching.