Science Class

At some point near the beginning of the year the science teacher left the school (before I came to Mexico). A new teacher was brought in and was treated like a substitute teacher, because that was what she was. So far it could be any Canadian school but the difference is that the lack of respect for the teacher never went away. So when I joined the class about 5 months after the first science teacher I was told to never do a single thing she said. At first I thought they were just trying to get me in trouble as a joke, but I soon realized that if you just pretended to not know that she was there and not make eye contact. Science class mainly consists of everyone walking around the class, playing games and talking, while the teacher tries to teach, yells at everyone for not listening and then gives up and messes around on her laptop. To a certain extent this is what it is like in all classes but our science class is the best. Once a week we all put on our lab coats (except for me because I never got around to buying one), and go downstairs for an experiment in the lab. The lab coats are not for safety, no one ever even wears protective goggles and so far this year we haven't dealt with anything more dangerous than vinegar. My educated guess is that the coats are purely for looks. Every kid has their name embroidered on the chest pocket. The lab experiments mainly consist of combining household things inorder to have sciency things happen. One day we did the writing with lemon juice to make invisible ink thing, another day we did catching the gas from vinegar and baking soda in a balloon. None of them are to prove a scientific hypothesis or to demonstrate a chemical reaction, they are just to make something cool happen. The science happening before your eyes is never explained, you are just supposed to learn that baking soda and vinegar make gas, not why they make gas, not what the gas is, just that it happens. Also these "experiments" are all designed to be a lot like cooking, with measurements like "a pinch" or "a few drops." I think that lab classes are just entertainment.