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.
 |
| Photo by Markus Leupold-Löwenthal from the Wikimedia Commons |
Getting ready to present at the World Storytelling conference in Kobe next Sunday, so I don't have much time for blogging. But I did want to get something down
which jumped out at me today. I
was lounging around in class during break time and one of my students pulled a
pineapple candy out of his pocket.
It's a round, very sour candy that's pretty popular in Japan. I said, "You know, I love that
pineapple candy, but I don't really like pineapples." The student, Ken, who is a pretty shy
guy and doesn't talk very much, looked at me as if I was totally crazy and
said, "But why Kevin?
Why?" I wasn't sure if
he was teasing me, but even if he was, I was down with that.
"Well," I said, "Pineapples have a great
flavor, but they are so dry. They
make my mouth feel strange. That
candy has all the goodness of pineapples and none of the dryness."
Ken slapped his hand against the desk and said, "I feel
the same way, too."
At which point, Ru-Chan, who was sitting across from Ken,
said, "I don't like blueberries.
But I love blueberry yogurt."
I jumped up and said, "I feel the same way! How about bananas?"
Ru-chan kind of frowned and said, "I don't like
bananas. But I like banana
chips."
Ken clapped and said, "Yes! Yes!"
And I said, "What is it about banana chips? I love them, too."
Then the bell rang and we started class.
So what is this little anecdote about anyway? Not much, really. Candy, fruit, a little connection, a
sense of excitement. It didn't
generate a lot of language, but I think it brought Ken, Ru-chan and I a little
closer together. It probably also
helped to boost both Ru and Ken's confidence. But most of all, it was just fun. We were just hanging out and talking. And we all had a good time. Sometimes I'm so caught up in how to
give my students more and more language, caught up in how to challenge them to
use what language they have in new ways, that I lose sight of what's happening
right in front of me. Which is a
shame, because it's in the here and now of class that I have my best chance to
connect with a student and not just teach, but allow us to learn about and from
each other. Maybe if I could dial
back on all the things I want to do or think I need to do in class, I would be
able to take more advantage of these pineapple-candy-moments. You know, the kind with all the
goodness of learning and none of the dryness of teaching.
