Tag: #TeachableMoments

Cringe Worthy Memorable Moments

I have a confession to make.  I am a flawed human being trying to do good in the world.

If I make a mistake I apologize and make amends. Sometimes I call myself out, sometimes I wait for students to notice and call me out. If it is a spelling or syntax error on a worksheet or slide deck that the students catch they earn extra credit.

When I mispronounce a name I ask for immediate correction and reminders if I slip up again. Names are a very good way to practice social justice as well as language arts. First I model sounding out the name the same way we taught our students to sound out new words. Then I apply any vocabulary knowledge I might have about words with similar roots or stems. Finally, I cross reference the foreign languages that I speak.

When I speak a student’s name for the first time I look for their face and make an effort to learn the face with the name, accept correction if called for and repeat the name speaking aloud to make sure I have pronounced it correctly. It will certainly take longer to get through the roster in this manner, but the benefit outweighs the cost because the students witness me modeling academic skills and respect for my students.

Students know that the adults in their lives are not perfect, but how often do those adults come clean, own their mistakes, apologize, and model how they learned from those mistakes?

Lately I have found the courage to share some of my more memorable and truly cringe worthy moments with my students.

I remember my first full time job out of college. My boss walked me to my desk and left me there to get some paperwork. The desk was very nice with a pretty calendar and matching accessories. I had no idea that this was not normal because this was my first job with a desk of my own. While I waited I filled in the calendar with family birthdates.

When my boss arrived she handed me a packet of papers and explained that her previous assistant buyer was on vacation and would pack up her desk upon her return. Until then I could put in an order for supplies, or I could shop for something more personal. OOPS!

And then it got even worse. Two weeks later I arrived in the company parking lot late and could not find a good parking space. I tried to squeeze into a spot and scraped the neighboring car. I hunted for a scrap of paper in the glove compartment and left a note with my phone number on the windshield before finding  a big enough parking space.

After lunch my predecessor arrived fuming that her car had been scraped and called the number on the paper. I wanted to crawl into a deep dark hole when my phone rang for all to hear. I offered to pay for the body work, but her opinion of me would never improve.

Jobs change, people move, and wet behind the ears, fresh faced college graduates grow up. I still make mistakes, and there are a few more cringe worthy stories to share, but I’ll save them for another teachable moment!

 

The chicken or the egg?

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?  As a business education teacher I am confronted by this conundrum each time I sit down to write a lesson plan. The standard that I am delivering and the scaffold of the concepts that I expect my students to already understand are printed neatly and separated by an index tab in the binder that also holds the curriculum document which itemizes the standards that go with each unit.

It is my job to find an interesting observation or question to draw the students in, remind them of what they already know and ask them what they think should be the natural outcome of “X” while carefully leaving a trail of bread crumbs to guide them toward the explicitly stated objective of the curriculum.

The truth is that the students have their own ideas about where the trail should lead and often they will gallop ahead of any lesson plan if they are empowered to exercise their curiosity and branch out on their own learning opportunity.

Here is the conundrum, how often can we set aside the prescribed objective in favor of the student-lead learning opportunity?

 If you have a sales background, you probably recognize this anecdote about the young sales person invited to a sales meeting with a senior executive. The young sales person works for several days assembling data and building a slide deck that is perfect in every way: Clear graphics, simple statements, minimal language crafted expressly for this client. The meeting goes very well, the conversation is relaxed and the customer’s questions are all fully answered ending in a handshake and an order. On their way to the elevator, the young sales person laments that they were not able to make their presentation. The senior executive responds to the young sales person “Your work in developing that presentation paid off because you were fully prepared to answer every question that the customer asked. That preparation translated into an easy conversation and an order. Your effort in assembling that presentation was not wasted.”

Similarly, lesson planning is not wasted when students are engaged in learning. Identifying what we want students to take away from a lesson, knowing our content fully, and preparing for the needs of the learners is like the young sales persons perfect presentation slide deck. Recognizing a teachable moment and taking advantage of student lead learning is the goal of every good teacher.

The class went in a different direction. The lesson plan was not followed and students were rewarded for their interest and curiosity while the teacher took on the role of facilitator ceding to them their responsibility to learn; isn’t that the point?

GoodReads reviewer Trevor wrote in his review of the 1969 book Teaching as a Subversive Activity “We train people according to how we organise the institutions they are required to fit within – and if even part of the reason for having schools is to provide our society with citizens capable of acting in an active democracy, someone really does need to explain how this will be achieved from over a decade in such an autocratic environment.”

Yet here we are, nearly 50 years later still trying to change the status quo. “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”

But maybe, if we look past the rows of desks and standardized tests, there are glimmers of change peeking through. Maybe the genius hour, project based learning, and other models of student lead learning are gaining momentum. Maybe we need to get better at recognizing teachable moments. Maybe we need to let go of the plan and take advantage of the learning opportunities!