A big thank you to everyone for your support over the past two years. Realizing that this blog keeps growing and that the options for making it navigable with blogger are diminishing week by week, I've moved over to WordPress. I hope this doesn't cause any unnecessary inconvenience.
The original article you are looking for is below this short message. After reading, if you have a moment to check out the new (and hardly changed) "The Other Things Matter", please drop in. Would love to hear from you.
On Tuesday, 8 upper class International Course students volunteered to teach 8 lower level first year students. It was our fourth student-peer-teaching class and I was walking around the room listening in on the conversations, you know, just in case. I hadn't really thought about what a "just in case" moment would look like. But I figured I would know it if I saw it, and if it seemed appropriate, I would jump in and help out with some advice and get things back on track. Because, as a teacher, I'm a get things back-on-track kind of guy. I was lucky enough to catch the following exchange between A-Kun, a third year student, and TS, a first year student:
A-Kun (points to word in course book): Can you read this word?
TS (tries to sound out word, shakes head): No.
A-Kun: It's sculpture. (slides finger along word) S-c-u-l-p-t-u-r-e.
TS: Unnn.
A-Kun: It means "Choukoku" in Japanese.
TS: Oh.
A-Kun: Does the word "Choukoku" really mean anything to you?
TS: (silence)
A-Kun: It doesn't, does it?
TS: (shakes head no)
A-Kun: Yeah, when I read this chapter, the word "Choukoku" didn't mean anything to me either. So trying to remember that sculpture means "Choukoku" isn't going to be very useful.
TS: (kind of laughs)
A-Kun: But look at these. (points to a bunch of pictures of sculptures at the bottom of the textbook page) Don't worry about the Japanese word. Just remember your favorite image out of these pictures and that can be what a "sculpture" is for you.
After the class was over I sat down with A-Kun and asked him if he had ever thought about being a teacher. He said he had, but that he would rather work for an airlines as what he really wanted to work in travel. He thought working at a job which was basically helping people get to somewhere else they needed or wanted to go was almost as good as traveling himself. Lucky for whatever airlines gives A-Kun a job. But I'm pretty sure he would have made one fantastic teacher. He showed me how to make use of a C-class course book which I had long ago decided was useless. I definitely need to have many more of these "just in case moments." You know, the "Just-in-case-I'm-thinking-about-forgetting-that-one-of-my-roles-as-teacher-is-to-be-the-most-active-learner-in-the-room moments."
After the class was over I sat down with A-Kun and asked him if he had ever thought about being a teacher. He said he had, but that he would rather work for an airlines as what he really wanted to work in travel. He thought working at a job which was basically helping people get to somewhere else they needed or wanted to go was almost as good as traveling himself. Lucky for whatever airlines gives A-Kun a job. But I'm pretty sure he would have made one fantastic teacher. He showed me how to make use of a C-class course book which I had long ago decided was useless. I definitely need to have many more of these "just in case moments." You know, the "Just-in-case-I'm-thinking-about-forgetting-that-one-of-my-roles-as-teacher-is-to-be-the-most-active-learner-in-the-room moments."
