“I Didn’t Teach You That!”
“I didn’t teach you that!” I exclaimed, mentally reviewing everything we had learned together in the last two years. This girl was SMART. If she learned this from me, I had to think carefully when I taught it – she was smart, and she remembers things.
We had just finished critiqueing a presentation she was about to make, in English, on quitting smoking. She had prepared puppets, and a dialogue, and oh! She did a great job! We were sitting in a restaurant, in a private room, where we could eat and still have fun without worrying about embarrassing ourselves.
“No, khalti, no, you didn’t teach us that in words. But that is what you DID,” she responded.
Hunh? Hmmmm. I had to think about that. While I was thinking, she continued.
“When we would say we wanted to do something, you would say ‘OK, what does your week look like? How would Monday after schoool work?’ and we would DO it. You didn’t just talk about things, you did them. When you start a project, you finish it. This is the most important thing I learned from you.”
There are some things you can’t teach; it’s just words. There are things you teach and you have no idea you are teaching. I have to admit, I got choked up.
And I have no idea where this smart young woman is going to go with her life, but I can’t wait to see.
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wow…if any one thing makes turns a teacher from being a teacher to being a GOOD teacher then that would be it. Hats off to you, you oughta be proud. There’s an Arabic proverb (or Hadeeth Im not sure) that says that a teacher is almost akin to a prophet…this is inidicative of the greatness of the profession.
Whew! I bet in Islam there is also a verse or hadith that says a teacher will be judged by a stricter standard at the end of times. Very scary thought . . . especially when you don’t always mean to be teaching.
What I love about small group teaching is how much I learn in return – it’s more an exchange than a one way communication.