The story spark was Life Lessons. The writing prompt I chose was “A decision I made,” and the quote: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” – John Maxwell
Teachable Moments *
It was March 15, 2001, and all students were off from school for Curriculum Development Conference Day for teachers. We all gathered in the high school auditorium for the keynote speaker, Dr. Steven Sobel, a motivational speaker, educator, and humorist. During his speech, he said, “A lot of kids won’t tell you, but this is the day that you can reach me.” I was into writing down quotes back then, so I wrote down what he said. I don’t remember what Dr. Sobel talked about that day, but the quote has stuck with me for all my teaching/parenting since then.
Every day, teachers, parents, and children go into the world with the hopes that they will be able to learn something new and share some of their knowledge so that others can also learn.
As a teacher, when you have a class of students that are all over the place – socially, cognitively, and behaviorally, in addition to whatever baggage they are bringing to the day from home, you try to find a middle ground that you hope teaches everyone the skills you have in your plans. With Common Core, mandates, and testing pushing us to accomplish so much in so little time, it becomes an even harder task. There’s not as much time to find those teachable moments with individuals as you try to push everyone along at the same rate.
Over my 50+ years as an educator, I have found this true. Challenges I faced with students required me to try all sorts of creative and different strategies to help guide them to be successful learners. Each challenge made me think about each individual who needed to be addressed to conquer their fears, overcome their handicaps, and feel proud of their achievements. I was lucky back then. I had more time and fewer restrictions.
In my early years of teaching, I teamed up with another teacher, and we both taught 4th and 5th-grade inter-age classrooms. That meant that each of our classes comprised a combination of 4th and 5th graders. We kept most students for 2 years (our 4th graders became our 5th graders). As fifth graders left our classes, a new set of 4th graders entered. It allowed us a lot of flexibility. We could split the classes such that one of us taught all the 4th graders social studies or science curriculum, while the other taught all the 5th graders the fifth-grade social studies or science. Or, we could combine both classes and divide the students into more homogeneous groups based on individual skill levels. We did that with math and reading. There were times when we kept our own classes for subjects such as writing.
This allowed us not to be restricted by grade level but to deal with the students on their cognitive level. You can’t do that today. Each year, we decided who would teach which groups so that we, as teachers, wouldn’t stagnate our teaching of the same thing all the time.
What was nice about this system was that when one of us encountered a 4th grader struggling with a particular concept, such as math, we realized that that wasn’t the time to teach them that skill. So we could say, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll learn this concept with us next year.”
Finding a teachable moment and method sometimes gave us small victories. I’ve written about a few of those small victories in older blogs. You can read some of them by going to http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=271 and following the links at the bottom of the blog entry page to read more.
We must be keenly aware of our audience and teachable moments when teaching and sharing experiences. Recognizing that “This is the day you can teach me” is crucial to being an effective teacher and parent, so keep a lookout for it.
* This is a revised version of a piece I wrote in April 2016
