School Year Recap, 11th Grade Edition

What we learned this school year, 11^th grade edition

About a week before the end of school, my son remarked, “Today in physics class we finished watching The Mummy.”  That was the signal that learning was OVER for the year. 

On the last day, when I asked, “Son, what did you learn this school year?” he responded,  “Do I have to provide a comment for every class?”  Huge sigh. 

“In Organic Chemistry, I learned that aromatic compounds do not have to have a smell.  In Physics I learned about RC circuits and magnetic flux.”  We then had some discussion about how that sounds like the movie Back to the Future.

“In English I learned that if all the authors in the course were in a cage match, Macchiavelli would win.  In Latin class I learned that Latin poetry doesn’t make any sense.  In history class I learned how to spell the last name of the Speaker of the House.  It’s pronounced Bay-ner, but it’s spelled Bo-Weiner (Boehner).  And in Math I learned how to decompose partial fractions.”

When I asked, “What movies did you watch in school this year?” I got a much more enthusiastic response.  “Movies!  Let’s see...”

The Mummy (in AP physics class)

Men in Black II (in AP physics class)

Tron (in AP physics class)

John Adams (in history class, appropriately)

Hercules (Disney version, in Latin class, but wait, wasn’t Hercules Greek?)

I asked, “Did you watch any movies during Organic Chemistry class?”

He said, “No.  Mostly when we didn’t have any chem lessons, the teacher set stuff on fire.  Like gummy bears.  Also, he did the thermite reaction indoors. Anybody who knows what that is knows why it shouldn’t be done indoors.”  I admitted that I didn’t know, and my son told me that one of the products is molten iron.

No wonder he likes science classes so much.  Movies, fire, and molten iron!