Yes we can!

Since I was out of town last week, Monday was my first day back with the students since the election.  Actually I thought of them on that night and decided that I would go out on a limb to try and use this as a moment to encourage them to personalize the implications of the election.  I was especially focused on talking to one of my three classes which has a lot of students who are smart but extremely unfocused (and also includes many students who were taking biology for the second time after failing last year!).  I was working with them on wrapping up our first major activity and just took a few minutes to talk to them about this topic. I started by asking them what they thought about the election and  I got a variety of responses. Most agreed that it was historic and that they were excited. So I piggybacked off of their comments to say that I also considered this a historic  event and that I hoped that they would think of this event to mean that there was not limit to what any of them could achieve. I recounted an idea that someone at the research conference I attended last week mentioned, that luck is the result of opportunity plus preparation. To bring it home I reminded them that Obama was prepared to take on the opportunity of becoming the president and that he began this preparation before the age that they are now.  I said "You cannot go to Harvard if you fail Biology" and got a lot of smiles from them with that comment. But I told them that the "change" that I hoped would come from the election was to see them take what they do today (and in class) more seriously, and to see it as a part of the preparation that will put them in position to take on whatever opportunities would lie ahead. I told them that I believed it they prepared now they could even succeed beyond what Barack Obama had done.  As we worked the rest of the day I used the joke of calling some kids "Obama" to get them to do their work and they actually seemed to "get it" and buckled down to do their work. Even if it only works for that one day, I was hopefully that my message got through.