Hypothesis

I love science--I mean I REALLY love science. I am hoping to instill this same love in my kids. So, this year I have them doing two science curriculums (Botany AND physics chemistry) and I've pulled out all the stops with these classes. We are coloring pictures, watching videos, doing experiments, going on hikes, growing plants, and most importantly making and testing hypotheses. Unfortunately, this matter of making hypotheses has created quite a bit of anxiety for my perfectionism driven children. Today, for example, I had them guess what the freezing point would be for various liquids (salt-water, plane water, jello, alcohol, etc). I had them make a table and record their guess on the left hand column and the actual freezing point on the right hand column. After recording their guesses, we then did the experiment. Of course, their guesses were mostly wrong and I thought this would be a great lesson on why you need to perform an experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Everything went well UNTIL it came time to record the results of the experiment. Both kids started to erase their guesses and write in the actual time in the "guess" column.

"Don't erase that column," I instructed. You need to write the results in the right column not the guess column.

"But Mommy," Amy countered. "That would show that we guessed WRONG. I don't want anyone to know we didn't guess right."

"But that's the whole point of the experiment," I tried to explain. "You don't do everything right the first time!"

"No Mommy! I have to do it RIGHT the FIRST time. It's WRONG and I don't want to put down anything WRONG!"

I vainly tried to explain the concept of an hypothesis but it was meant with weeping and wailing (yes, Amy literally had tears streaming down her cheeks). "Mommy, you don't know how to teach us. You don't know how to do science. This is NOT how you do science, mommy. You need to do it RIGHT!"

"Seriously guys," I desperately countered. "I have a BS in Biology. I have an MD AND I am a board certified pediatrician. I have never failed a college test, medical school test, or board exam. I have done bench research. I have published multiple papers. I am more than qualified to be teaching you science!"

My remonstrance was met with more tears.

Eric, overhearing the ruckus, showed up on the scene and tried to reason with them as well but the situation was hopeless. Now Amy was crying because "mommy was laughing at her" and "daddy was being unfair" and Michael was crying because "mommy was writing in his experiment book" and "Amy got to do her own experiment" and things continued to deteriorate.

......so........I.put.away.the.science.books.for.today......We will try again tomorrow.